TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Director General of Industry-Based Manufacturing of the Industry Ministry, Harjanto, said that national ceramic products are now facing a tough competition with similar products imported from Vietnam.

According to Harjanto, although the quality of those Vietnamese ceramic products are lower than those of the local products, they have a better marketing strategy and offer lower prices; thus posing threats to the local products.

"We will face bigger threats once we enter the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015," he told Tempo, Saturday, April 19, 2014.

For the record, national ceramic products are still dominating up to 80 percent of the market.

Therefore, in order to protect national products, the government has mandated the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) on ceramic products.

Nevertheless, Harjanto said that the distribution of imported ceramic products that do not meet the SNI has been getting rampant despite the ban and said that those products sell well in the market due to the low price.

"We're going to regulate this," he said.

In 2014, Industry Ministry eyes Rp34 trillion from the selling of national ceramic products. From the figure, 35 percent or Rp11.9 trillion would be obtained through exports to several countries in East Asia and the Middle East.

Indonesia is not only famous for the manufacturing of ceramic products as construction materials but also for ceramic products used for accessories with a high quality.

AMIR TEJO