The rampant practice of illegal imports of textiles and textile products (TPT) suppresses industrial utilization in the country. This condition is even said to have triggered mass layoffs (PHK) in the textile industry. West Java Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Association (Hipmi) Honorary Council Cecep Daryus said, the national textile industry is still in a critical period since the end of 2022. In early April, the textile company PT Tuntex Garment went bankrupt and laid off around 1,163 employees. "At the end of last year there were also many who were sent home. If conditions like this continue, there will be more," said Cecep, Monday (17/4/2023).

Cecep hopes that the central and regional governments will not let go of this incident. He did not deny that the current conditions were inseparable from the export market situation.

However, according to him, Indonesia's domestic market is also very large and must be maintained. According to him, the textile industry has a role as a socio-economic safety net for Indonesia.

"If the government lets go of the issue of these imports, our economy will gradually collapse," said Cecep.

The Association of Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers (Apsyfi) has again asked the government to seriously eradicate illegal textile imports that are increasingly rife. Moreover, the import is now done openly.

Apsyfi Chairperson Redma Gita Wirawasta stated that the flood of imported textile goods has increasingly depressed the performance of the TPT industry so that the average utilization from upstream to downstream is only around 50 percent. Based on Apsyfi's calculations, he said, annually there are around 300 thousand to 400 thousand tonnes of illegal TPT imports valued at IDR 35 trillion.

Illegal imports are in the form of clothes, fabrics, and threads. "About 1,400 containers per month enter through the main ports in Java and some via Sumatra," he said.

Redma added, around 210 thousand tons came from China. The rest are from Korea, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Thailand. "We can clearly see the data from the Trade Map that China's TPT exports to Indonesia are greater than our import records from China," he said.

He explained, the difference in data was caused by the practice of wholesale imports, under invoices, escape from the harmonized system (HS), and seepage of bonded warehouses. He also highlighted TPT import approvals related to Permendag Number 25 of 2022 which he considered there were still many leaks.

Redma said, the association received reports that there were still many companies that committed violations and were granted excessive import permits both by the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) for API-P (import identification numbers for companies) and by the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) for API-U (import identification numbers). general)

“The import permits granted were not transparent. The violators have never been prosecuted, instead the import permits have continued to increase," he said.

The government previously stated that it would impose restrictions on imported goods. Currently, the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Industry are working on non-tariff restrictions for imported textiles and textile products (TPT).

The Indonesian Textile Association (API) supports the government's move. API assesses that one of the restrictions needed to protect the domestic market is safeguards. This is a security measure taken by the government to recover serious losses or prevent the threat of serious losses to the domestic industry. This was as a result of a surge in imported goods of similar or directly competing goods.

API Executive Director Danang said that safeguard measures only need to be applied to certain harmonized system (HS) codes. No need to all HS codes.

"That's why we expect the government to issue safeguards for certain HS codes. The reason is because the textile industry or raw materials come to us at strange prices, which I call predatory pricing," said Danang, recently.

He added that it is impossible for a country or industry to produce certain HS code goods at very low prices. So, he said, there is a possibility of dumping practices so that protection must be carried out in the form of a safeguard or anti-dumping.

"However, for the industry of certain materials with no indication of dumping, we are not proposing safeguards. Let it be natural competition, there is no problem," he said.