The Association of Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers (APSyFI) stated that the Draft Government Regulation (RPP) on the Implementation of the Job Creation Act in the Industry and Trade sector is still very normative.
APSyFI Industry and Trade Policy Analyst Farhan Aqil Syauqi thinks there needs to be strict sanctions for violators of the textile and textile product (TPT) trade system. The reason is, the RPP is considered to be able to accelerate the recovery of the textile industry from the Covid-19 pandemic.
"If this RPP can guarantee the domestic market, this will be a powerful remedy for the textile industry which is currently slumping, even business actors can open more jobs," he said.
The Indonesian Textile Association (API) recorded that the production volume of the textile industry at the start of the pandemic fell 85 percent to 1 million tons. Meanwhile, the manufacturing average utilization fell to 5.05 percent.
As a result, manufacturers had to release 80.01 percent of their workforce or 2.15 million workers in the second week of April 2020. Meanwhile, the number of workers in the textile industry before the pandemic struck was 2.69 million people.
Farhan stated that many college graduates in 2020 will not be absorbed. The reason is, the manufacturer is still in the process of absorbing workers who had to be released due to the pandemic.
According to him, the RPP of the Trade Sector Job Creation Law which protects the domestic market can grow investment in the textile industry. As a result, he continued, manufacturers can add new jobs.
Farhan said that the protection of the domestic market meant a strict examination of transhipment documents and financial transactions. According to him, this will make stakeholders see the real volume of imported TPT and make it easier for the authorities to take action.
Executive Director of the Textile Experts Association (Ikatsi) Riza Muhidin said the issuance of the Job Creation Law was one concrete solution to solve the textile industry trade system problems. Even so, Riza thinks that the law should be criticized because there are several points that are not included in the regulation.
According to him, the RPP does not have a single article regarding domestic market guarantees. Riza assessed that the government does not intend to encourage investment in the local textile industry by not including this article.
As is well known, the RPP of the Job Creation Law in the Trade Sector, accessed from the official page of the Job Creation Law, consists of 90 pages consisting of 179 articles and explanations.
Meanwhile, this article has 15 chapters which consist of several parts in some of them. "This pandemic has taken us down, don't let this RPP complicate matters. We are also still demanding a revision of the Minister of Trade Regulation No. 77/2019," he said.
