Director General of Customs and Excise Askolani revealed the results of his party's interim study to map the causes of the flood of imports of textiles and textile products (TPT) into the country. He carried out this study by carrying out comparative analysis through the use of external data to see concrete TPT import data. Accompanied by looking at the import trend of TPT commodities. "Then we look at the import trend of these commodities and analyze market prices, as well as in-depth interviews at each input point to ensure and confirm actual conditions in the field," said Askolani during an online APBN press conference, Wednesday (20/9/2023).
From the results of this study, he revealed the potential for under-invoicing to undeclared. Under-invoicing is a method used to falsify the declaration of the value of goods by lowering the price.
"From there, we saw that there was potential for under-invoicing to occur, so this will be one of our in-depth and follow-up actions," stressed Askolani.
"Then, the potential for undeclared imports from the reported volume and tonnage could also occur and of course what frequently occurs is the escape aspect from HS," he said.
Of the three modes that cause imported TPT to flood the Indonesian market, Askolani said, there is actually one other factor that is driving it, namely the potential balloon effect. The balloon effect is a condition where illegal goods enter untouched places when the supervisory authority focuses its supervision in one place.
"What is important is the potential ballooning effect of our strengthening at one port which then has the impact of shifting to other ports or the eastern coastal area, where of course the supervision will be much wider," said Askolani.
From the results of the study, Askolani admitted that he had taken various steps to prevent the problem of imported TPT from getting worse. This includes tightening supervision with the internal compliance unit (UKI) and law enforcement officers (APH).
"We have coordinated with APH, including business actors, so that the data is up to date and we can understand it. Our operational steps are also currently running the Sriwijaya Net and the Wallacea Net so that in the field we can actually carry out real prevention and enforcement," he stressed. .
Previously, the Association of Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers (APSyFI) said that the influx of imported textiles entering illegally had made the domestic industry chronic.
"Illegal textile imports are increasingly disturbing and are the cause of the decline in the national textile and textile products (TPT) industry in recent years," said APSyFI General Chairperson Redma Gita Wirawasta, Friday (15/9/2023).
"We ask that the government immediately act decisively both on the import side and on the distribution side on the market," he added.
On the other hand, he said, there was a very large gap between Indonesia's import records based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and data on China's exports to Indonesia based on data from the General Custom Administration of China. This, he said, refers to data from the International Trade Center (ITC).
Referring to ITC data based on records from the General Custom Administration of China, he continued, China's TPT exports to Indonesia for TPT (HS 50-63) reached US$ 6.50 billion. Meanwhile, ITC referring to BPS data noted that TPT imports from China reached US$3.55 billion.
"This means there is a gap of around US$2.95 billion. This is the value of imports that are suspected to have entered Indonesia illegally," he said.
