JAKARTA - The government is encouraged to re-evaluate the plan to increase the import quota for industrial salt following the increased realization of imports in early 2026.
This policy is considered to have the potential to reduce the absorption of domestic production of salt if it is not based on a transparent balance of needs and production.
In addition, this step is feared to hinder the achievement of the salt self-sufficiency target in 2027.
Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the import of industrial salt with HS code 25010093, namely salt with a minimum sodium chloride rate of 97 percent, reached around 936 thousand tons during January-May 2026 or increased by 13.1 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.
The increase occurred after the import trend had shown a slowdown, throughout 2025, industrial salt imports were recorded at around 2.66 million tons, lower than 2.74 million tons in 2024. However, the surge in imports in the first five months of 2026 indicates that the downward trend has not been consistent.
Director of Economics Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), Nailul Huda, assessed that the government needs to publish the balance of salt needs and production periodically.
According to him, data openness is an important basis for import policies to be formulated more accurately and planned.
"Data on the balance of basic goods, such as salt, is not published regularly. In fact, this balance is important to see the needs and domestic production so that imports can be planned well. I think it is important to open it to the public," said Nailul.
One of the main users of industrial salt is the chlor-alkali plant (CAP) sector, with the need in 2026 estimated at 1.18 million tons. However, the import of industrial salt is also intended to meet the needs of other sectors, including the food and pharmaceutical industries.
Therefore, Nailul considers the transparency of data on needs and production to be important so that the public can assess whether the increase in imports is really triggered by an increase in industry demand or merely becomes a pattern of imports that takes place routinely.
In addition, he also highlighted the time of import implementation, because local salt production generally begins during the dry season, but importers actually do a lot of stock accumulation at the beginning of the year.
"When summer usually starts production, but unfortunately the importer stocks it at the beginning of the year. There is uncertainty about the policy related to this import that makes companies quickly stock salt," he said.
Nailul also assessed that the weak absorption of local salt was influenced by the lack of price incentives at the level of farmers.
According to him, the selling price, which is sometimes below Rp. 1,000 per kilogram, is considered unable to cover the increase in production costs, and this condition is exacerbated by the lack of a government-set purchase price (HPP), so that farmers prefer to accelerate the harvest cycle rather than improving the quality of production results.
"As a result, it becomes disincentive for salt farmers to produce the best quality salt. They will prioritize the harvest cycle rather than quality," he said.
Seeing this condition, the addition of the industrial salt import quota is considered to be thoroughly studied by considering national stock data, the real needs of the industry, domestic production capacity, technical specifications of salt, and the time of import.
The government also needs to differentiate the needs of each sector, such as CAP, the food industry, pharmaceuticals, and other sectors so that import policies are not generally implemented without considering the characteristics of each other's needs.
For salt outside the CAP requirement, such as the food and pharmaceutical industries, the government does not set a fixed import quota, and imports can only be carried out through a certain state mechanism after considering the adequacy of domestic production.
The mechanism is considered to need to be closely monitored so that it does not develop into a routine import channel, especially for types of salt that can actually be produced by the national industry.
Meanwhile, the BMKG's forecast for the 2026 dry season, which is expected to be longer and drier due to the El Niño phenomenon, should be an opportunity to increase production as well as the absorption of local salt.
Therefore, additional imports need to be controlled so that they do not coincide with the harvest season and disrupt the stability of the domestic salt market.
Import policies also need to consider pressure on the rupiah exchange rate, based on Bank Indonesia data, the rupiah exchange rate weakened to Rp18,039 per US dollar in early June 2026, in this condition, imports for commodities that can still be met by domestic production so it needs to be limited to reduce pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
In the midst of the salt self-sufficiency target in 2027, the government is expected to ensure that import policies do not hinder the development of the national salt industry, without openness to the balance of needs and production, proper import timing, and guarantees for the absorption of the results of farmers' production, efforts to improve the quality, capacity, and competitiveness of domestic salt will be difficult to achieve.
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