Minister Of MSMEs Accuses Customs And Excise Officers Of Cooperation In Passing Chinese Products To Indonesia

Minister of MSMEs Maman Abdurrahman (between)

JAKARTA - Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Maman Abdurrahman revealed that the Ministry of Finance's Customs and Excise Directorate was also one of the causes of Indonesia being flooded with products from China.

According to Maman, Customs and Excise personnel are working with cargo and expedition entrepreneurs to bring in products from China to kill domestic MSME entrepreneurs.

"Indeed, all of these people who open entry are in Customs and Excise in collaboration with cargo expedition companies. So someone says the mafia imports all kinds of things, no! This is the cargo mafia and expeditions," said Maman in Jakarta, Monday, December 8.

Maman said that he was collaborating with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Industry to organize the flow of import products so as not to kill the domestic market.

Apalgi, he said, had received a commitment from the Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadivewa to organize from the upstream side, namely Customs and Excise.

"In his presentation, the Minister of Finance, the first to be arranged, which was dismantled, which was tidied upstream. Namely who? Customs!" said Maman

Furthermore, Maman said, currently the domestic market is still being flooded with products from China. In fact, he said, Indonesia is not 'haram' on imported products, but it should not be necessary to import goods that can be produced domestically

"The problem now is that our MSMEs are able to make clothes, produce headscarves, produce batik clothes, make pants, shoes, all kinds of sandals. But we let them enter from outside, it's terrible," explained Maman.

Maman said that the reason Indonesia was flooded with Chinese products was not the import mafia but expedition companies and cargo goods that passed these products.

"This is not an import mafia that plays. But an expedition company and cargo of goods," said Maman.

He explained that the mode used was to buy large quantities from China and then cooperate with shipping and cargo companies to import unknown quantities and specifications.

"How many qualifications, for example, items of A's goods, how many can be imported? Are 10,000 items, 20,000 items, or 30,000 items, or 100,000 items? This is not clear," he said.