Minister Of Industry Agus Gumiwang: Indonesia Has Strong Fractions To Become An Industrial State

Minister of Industry, Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. (Photo: Doc. Kemenperin)

JAKARTA - Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said that Indonesia has a strong foundation to become an industrial country, and continues to move forward, and answers all challenges that lie ahead.

"This is a small part of a bigger achievement. All can be achieved with good cooperation from all stakeholders, for the better industry and Indonesia," said the Minister of Industry in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, December 28.

The Minister of Industry said that in 2020, the growth of the non-oil and gas processing sector had been depressed to minus 2.52 percent due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, through various strategic policies to accelerate the national economic recovery, the performance of the manufacturing industry sector in the country continues to rise.

"The performance will be excited again in 2021 with a growth rate of 3.67 percent. Then the positive trend will continue in 2022, which is reflected in the first quarter growing by 5.47 percent, the second quarter by 4.33 percent, and the third quarter by 4.88 percent," he said.

This brilliant achievement proves that the government is able to maintain industrial conditions so that it continues to grow positively in the midst of turmoil and challenges.

"As for the contribution aspect in GDP, the contribution of the non-oil and gas processing industry in the third quarter of 2022 is 16.10 percent. However, it does not necessarily mean that the industry is de-industrialized," said Agus.

According to him, the contribution of the industry is still the highest among other economic sectors.

"This is our common task, how to improve industrial performance again so that we can become an industrial country," he added.

In terms of exports, contributions from the manufacturing sector continue to increase despite the unstable world conditions. The value of industrial exports in January-October 2022 reached 173.20 billion US dollars or contributed 76.51 percent of the total national export value.

"This figure has exceeded the achievement of manufacturing exports throughout 2020 of US$ 131.09 billion. When compared to January-October 2021, the export performance of the manufacturing industry in January-October 2022 increased by 20.39 percent," said the Minister of Industry.

The export performance of the manufacturing sector is also the backbone of national economic growth.

Next, the realization of investment in the manufacturing sector in January-September (until the third quarter) of 2022 was recorded at IDR 343.06 trillion. This figure is up 49.24 percent when compared to the realization of investment in the same period in 2021 of IDR 229.87 trillion.

"The realization of investment in 2022 is arguably the achievement of realization with the highest value compared to 2019-2021 when the world is full of challenges," said the Minister of Industry.

In the employment aspect, the manufacturing industry sector shows a recovery in terms of employment. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of workers in the manufacturing industry has decreased by 2 million people, from 19.14 million people in 2019 to 17.4 million people in 2020.

"But along with the rise of the manufacturing industry sector from the impact of the pandemic, there will be an additional employment of 1.2 million people in 2021 so that the total number of workers in this sector will increase to 18.64 million people, and in 2022 there will be another 500 thousand, so there will be 19.11 million workers in the manufacturing industry," he said.

The Minister of Industry added that the manufacturing industry in the country was also seen from the achievements of the Industrial Trust Index (IKI) in November which showed an expansionary direction, which was at 50.89.

"From this figure, we can identify that there are 11 sub-sectors that are expanding (71 percent of GDP Industry) and 12 sub-sectors that have contracted (29 percent of GDP Industry)," he explained.