Monday 8 July 2013

RAW MATERIAL BASED INDUSTRY NEED MORE DOMESTIC SUPPORT

Apparently raw material based industries were not getting enough domestic support. This was one point to be highlighted at the parliamentary session to discuss the industrial Bill. This was disclosed by Chairman of commission VI of house Airlangga Hartato after hearing session with National Standardization Board [BSN] on Monday [27/5].

The development of petro-chemical industry for example, which served as raw material for the pharmaceutical industry very frequently was running out of supply of raw materials. Matters such became topic of dissected thoroughly in discussing the Bill of industry and Bill of trade.

Now raw material based industries were not getting enough supply of raw materials at home. Local suppliers of raw materials must be insisted and persuaded to support the industry. Now it became imperative for Indonesia to strengthen competitiveness and select the sector to be the premium sector. Deeper understanding of the industry structure and regionalization of trading zones was necessary. These were some of the important points to be focused in discussing the industrial Bill.

The objective of industrial Bill was essentially one thing to increase added value and step up competitiveness. Those were the points to be regulated by the industrial Bill. A s known, today the industrial Bill and trading Bill was beginning to be dissected by the Working Committee of House. So far Indonesia never had any appropriate legal umbrella for industry and trading.

The ministry of trade and the ministry of industry were over burdened with problems in world’s trading system as there was no legal ground to stand on. Understandable because the law of trading was non-existent. The law of industry had been circumcised here and there.

No Austerity Plan Needed

Pursuant to the discussion of budgeting at the National Standardization Boars [BSN], Vice Chairman of Commission VI of House Aria Bima felt that austerity in BSN was not necessary, because it would disturb the strategic plan which was not important. Moreover the amount of money to be saved was measly, only around Rp6 billion.

Many national products needed to be protected by BSN. Discussions over budget saving by BSN would soon be dissected by the working committee of commission VI of house because the role of BSN was strategic and vital. About the role of BSN in the ASEAN trading zone, Aria stated that there were no free trade zone in the ASEAN economic zone. No commodity could flow in and out just like that, there were rules to observe. What was most pressing was regulations for imported goods that stormed the local market in large quantity. Products of national standard must be made at once, and local producers must be taught to produce goods of high quality standard.


Goods which were below national standard must be allowed to move in and out. As a member of Asean, Indonesia must have a clear parameter of what qualified products were. The objective was to protect consumers, imported goods must be screened of their quality standard. (SS)        

Business News - May 31, 2013         

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