The government was asked all out to encourage the performance of the manufacturing industry to revive the national economy. This is because manufacturing can be the cornerstone of the economy in 2021, because its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) is 19.88% in 2020.

Last month, the purchasing manager's index (PMI) touched the level of 53.3, the highest in history. In addition, exports jumped 20% to US $ 18.35 billion in March 2021, the highest since August 2011, while imports rose 26% to US $ 16.7 billion. Thus, there was a trade surplus of US $ 1.57 billion.

To maintain the momentum of the surge in manufacturing performance, the government needs to issue a number of policies. For example, releasing a counter cyclical policy in the form of disbursing social assistance to boost consumption. This is important considering the government prohibits Lebaran 2021 homecoming activities.

In addition, the government needs to provide support to mainstay manufacturing industries, such as food and beverage, textiles, automotive, electronics and chemicals to be flexible in production. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of companies have quickly shifted to producing various tools and protectors needed by health workers. This was done by the textile and textile product (TPT) industry.

Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Shinta Kamdani said that the increase in exports and imports of all commodities indicates that Indonesia's economy has started to recover. Indonesia is also quite aggressive in exploiting the international market for domestic economic recovery.

To maintain export growth, he said, the government must boost the production of national export products, aggressively exploit market potentials, penetrate the market, and continue to improve export facilitation.

"So, we can't be happy just yet, because we still have a long way to go for a full economic recovery," he said, Friday (16/4).

According to him, the business world and the government still have to work hard to maintain and increase the momentum of this performance and take advantage of the existing international market momentum. You do this by increasing aggressively and productively to boost exports, so that the trade surplus can be maintained, even though imports are starting to normalize to pre-pandemic levels.

According to him, the increase in domestic consumption which also triggers growth in imports is driven by the momentum of Ramadan and Eid. Reflecting on the previous year, consumption has the potential to contract after Lebaran. He is worried that the increase in domestic consumption during Ramadan and Lebaran will only be temporary because there is additional seasonal income, such as holiday allowances (THR).

"Therefore, post-Eid al-Fitr, it is likely that purchasing power will shrink again, so that domestic consumption will also decline. Therefore, we must strive to improve performance on the supply side, namely investment, business credit liquidity, and normalization of economic activity, so that the recovery of people's purchasing power can occur immediately through increased productivity and job creation. Thus, import and performance-oriented industrial sector the domestic market can be maintained to contribute positively to the economic recovery until the end of the year, "added Shinta.