Food and Beverage Industry Supports New Import Duty Policy

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Finance Ministry issued regulation No. 132/PMK.010/2015 on Goods Classification System and Import Duties to be enforced on July 23, 2015 or 14 days after it was passed on July 9, 2015.

The new regulation imposes import duties of 15-30 percent for imported beverages and 90-150 percent for alcoholic drinks.

Adhi S. Lukman, chairman of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Association (Gapmmi), said that his organization fully supported the regulation.

“[The regulation] is good to boost the utilization of local products,” Adhi said at the Trade Ministry on Thursday, July 23, 2015.

Adhi hopes that the regulation enforcement would leverage local products’ competitiveness and productivity as imported products would be less affordable.

Thomas Darmawan, the head of Food and Beverage Industry Committee at the Indonesian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, echoed Adhi’s opinion, as saying that the new tariff would be favorable for local industries. Thomas said imposing higher duties for imported products than those for raw materials was reasonable. Thomas predicted that people would shift their preferences to local products when prices of imported products jumped significantly.

“Hopefully, [the policy] to increase the tariff has been thoroughly evaluated. We don’t want to see pries of local products to increase due to weakening purchase power,” Thomas said.  

Thomas added that the food and beverage and manufacturing industry has a huge potential since the annual consumption reached Rp 2,000 trillion (US$153.8 billion). In addition, the manufacturing industry has enjoyed a total consumption of at least Rp 700 trillion (US$53.8 billion) per year.

URSULA FLORENE SONIA