The Ministry Of Industry Prepares Policies To Protect The National Ceramic Industry From The Attack Of Imported Goods

Director of the Cement, Ceramic, and Processing Industry of Non-Aligned Galian Materials at the Directorate General of IKFT Wiwik Pudjiastuti. (Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Industry is preparing policies to protect the national ceramic industry from the flood of imported ceramics.

Director of the Cement, Ceramic, and Processing Industry of Non-Aligned Galiran Materials at the Directorate General of IKFT Wiwik Pudjiastuti said the instruments prepared include imported ceramic lartas to anti-dumping policies.

"Indeed, ceramic conditions, right, currently there are quite a lot of imports. The problem is quite a lot, so we are now making some policies that essentially improve the performance of our ceramic industry, whatever the cause is," Wiwik told reporters after being met at the Asta Karya Nusa 2023 event at the Ministry of Industry Building. Jakarta, Tuesday, October 17th.

Wiwik said the Ministry of Industry was preparing a prohibition and restriction (laltas) policy to protect domestic ceramics. This industry is known to have obtained safeguard facilities and will end in October 2024.

"Yang kemarin sudah jalan, kan, safeguard. Lartas kami siapkan juga, rencananya ke depan sedang disiapkan juga anti-dumping. Ini sedang kami siapkan juga instrumen-nstrumen yang terkait seperti port impor terbatas, karena terkait dengan kementerian/institution lain, tentu kami sedang facilitasi untuk itu," ujarnya.

Even so, Wiwik has not been able to explain further about when the policy will begin to be implemented.

However, he said, the regulation would be in line with the direction of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) regarding the tightening of imports of a number of commodities.

"This is related to the results of the presidential limited meeting some time ago that commodities whose imports are widely sought to be limited. This will be seen by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy," he said.

Wiwik said that the weakening of the rupiah did not have a direct influence on the performance of the ceramic industry. This is because the raw materials for the ceramic industry currently come from within the country so that imports of raw materials are relatively small.

The utilization of the ceramic industry is currently experiencing a decline after two years of enjoying expansion due to the industry's low-cost gas price policy and the rise of imported ceramics.