The Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers Association (APSyFI) revealed the importance of law enforcement and strict sanctions to prevent unscrupulous individuals and mafias importing textile goods and textile products (TPT) from 'playing' in the field. The General Chair of APSyFI, Redma Wirawasta, said that his party supports the government's steps regarding the plan to change supervision from Post-Border to Border with the fulfillment of Import Approvals (PI) and Surveyor Reports (LS). "If the government's steps are effective, improvements in conditions will be seen in the next 4 months, because too many imported goods have flooded the market," said Redma, Monday (9/10/2023).

Meanwhile, this policy will later be contained in a Ministerial Regulation from the relevant Ministries/institutions, namely the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Trade. Nevertheless, Redma reminded that Border control regulations carried out by customs officers in the customs area need to be supplemented with law enforcement so that there are no more loopholes for illegal imports.

"Persons in the field together with the import mafia will continue to look for other ways, including wholesale practices which no minister has yet banned, even though it is the main entry point for illegally imported goods," he said.

According to him, all government policies, if stakeholders in the field and unscrupulous customs officers are not resolved by law enforcement, then the problem of illegal imports will not be resolved.

The reason is that groups of illegal importers and their cronies will continue to look for loopholes, especially since there are no regulations that can provide sanctions to overcome this.

On the other hand, Redma said, illegal imports can be traced through trade map data, as well as to measure the success of government policies. As long as the gap between China's export records to Indonesia and Indonesia's import data from China is still large, this means that illegal imports still exist.

"Regulation-wise, this step can improve conditions, you just need to pay attention to it in the implementation stage," he explained.

Apart from that, the Executive Secretary of the Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers Association (APSyFI), Farhan Aqil Syauqi, said that law enforcement regarding illegal imports or unprocedural imports is also very important.

"It is necessary to tighten imports and enforce fair laws to create a competitive domestic industry," explained Farhan.

Furthermore, he explained, the textile industry is still in the wait and see phase for some time to come. This is because the condition of the export market still shows no signs of recovery. Meanwhile, domestic consumption is now filled with illegally imported goods that do not pay taxes/import duties, making it difficult to compete with products like this.

Previously, APSyFI shared comparative data from the national Central Statistics Agency (BPS) regarding TPT imports with China's export data. The results show a large gap, indicating the prevalence of illegal imports. Based on data from the General Custom Administration of China, China's TPT (HS 50-63) exports to Indonesia reached US$ 6.5 billion. Meanwhile, BPS recorded that TPT imports from China were only US$3.55 billion. From the 2022 data, Redma noted that based on International Trade Center (ITC) data, there was a gap of US$2.94 billion or the equivalent of IDR 43 trillion which was not included in the official BPS records.