The Minister of Industry (Menperin) Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita prepared a number of steps to anticipate a slowdown in the performance of the textile and textile product (TPT) industry due to world economic conditions and the invasion of imported products from China. "The policies adopted in the framework of securing the domestic market which will be taken, are expected to minimize the impact of the global recession on the national economy in the form of reduced demand and protect the domestic market from attacks on goods originating from imports, especially from China," said the Minister of Industry in a statement in Jakarta , Friday.

The Minister of Industry revealed that the global economic situation, especially in the European region and other export destination countries, had an impact on the performance of the national textile industry, which has the main export destinations to the United States and Europe. The decline in the value of TPT exports in the January-April 2023 period was recorded at US$3.7 billion, down 28.44 percent compared to the same period the previous year of US$5.1 billion.

On the other hand, the TPT product market has also experienced a rush of imports from China, which has experienced stockpiling due to reduced demand from the United States and Europe, so it has begun to look for new market countries to accommodate its production, including Indonesia.

"Moreover, Indonesia has a stable economic growth and a large population. This makes us a potential market destination for TPT products from China," he added.

This situation is also considered to threaten the domestic TPT industry, so the government needs to immediately adopt policies to safeguard the domestic market to minimize the impact of declining demand and potential dumping from China.

"We have received reports that the fiber industry has begun to reduce its production. This is due to imports of synthetic fibers and filaments, as well as fabrics which have begun to flood the domestic market," explained the Minister of Industry.

For this reason, the Ministry of Industry will take a number of steps. First, follow up on the proposed incentives for reducing electricity payments for industry. The incentives requested by the industry are in the form of relaxation in the payment of electricity bills, setting the amount of late payment fines at a fair price, setting one electricity tariff (rates outside peak load times for industries that operate 24 hours), providing electricity tariff relief, and easing the use of solar power plants ( PLTS) roof.

The Ministry of Industry has also adopted policies through programs to increase exports, control imports, and increase industrial competitiveness. The program to increase exports is carried out by encouraging free trade agreement (FTA) cooperation with the European Union and the United States. Furthermore, strengthening promotions to find markets and control imports.

To increase industrial competitiveness, the government is developing and training industrial human resources, restructuring industrial machinery and equipment, and subsidizing certain natural gas prices (HGBT), in this case for the upstream textile industry. In the records of the Ministry of Industry, in the first quarter of 2023, the TPT industry's GDP growth rate was 0.07 percent, slowing compared to the previous year of 3.61 percent (yoy).

The TPT industry's GDP contribution to national GDP in the first quarter of 2023 also decreased to 1.01 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2022 of 1.10 percent. The decline also occurred in the utilization of the textile industry in May 2023, namely to 67.59 percent. Likewise the apparel industry, whose utilization decreased by 74.79 percent.