Textile industry assesses that the bureaucracy that is pro-import and tends to ignore the sustainability of the domestic industry is evident in the garment safeguards that the government is currently discussing.

The Trade Research and Development Agency (BPPP) in the National Interest Consideration (PKN) meeting requested that 75 HS numbers only be subject to a 5 percent import duty. The request is also considered to be very detrimental to IKM Tekstil, which is currently squeezed by imported garment products and the pandemic conditions.

Indonesian Textile Association (API) Garment Safeguard Coordinator Kevin Hartanto said the current garment safeguard absolutely needs to be established by the government to protect domestic IKM.

"We hope that the government will fully support the establishment of this garment safeguard so that domestic IKMs can be protected and able to rise again," he said.

According to him, if BPPP asks 75 HS numbers to be subject to a tariff of only 5 percent, then that amount is considered to have no protection at all. Moreover, one of the IKM hijab products whose import volume is more than 10,000 tons per year. The API count refers to the 2017-2019 BPS data, the import volume of 75 HS numbers is equivalent to 94.5 percent of the total 134 HS numbers submitted by the API.

"It also means that the results of the KPPI investigation which has been investigating for months are not considered at all," said Kevin.

API Executive Secretary Rizal Tanzil added that domestic garment industry players are IKM, which in fact really need protection from imported apparel which is currently rampant.

"If our IKM is protected, they will move the upstream industry, they will buy raw materials from local fabrics, the cloth industry buys local yarns and so on upstream," Rizal explained.

This multiple impact is important in driving the national textile industry and textile product ecosystems so that the impact can absorb labor and increase the competitiveness of local industries.

Because, currently the textile industry absorbs 5 million workers and there are thousands of SMIs involved in this supply chain. For this reason, the government should immediately set the Import Duty for Safeguarding Apparel Safeguards as soon as possible.