Indonesia’s domestic market continues to be dominated by illegal imported textile product. The origin of around 16.7 percent of all textile product consumption could not be traced. The textile and garment products that were illegally available throughout 2016 has reached 31,000 tons, said Secretary General of the Synthetic Manufacturers Association of Indonesia (Apsyfi), Redma Wirawasta.

Redma estimated that Indonesia’s total textile consumption throughout 2016 reached 1.86 million tons. Meanwhile, the sales volume of domestic textile products reached 1.4 million tons and the import volume reached 151,000 tons.

The volume of public’s consumption is larger than its production and import. These are truly items that are not recorded, Redma said on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.

They suggest creating a regulation on permissible imported textile products that have not been produced in-house. This is to avoid the same thing reoccurred.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association (API), Ade Sudrajat, said that the government can prevent imports of similar products available in the country through the tariff changes.

The government can place a more specific rate in order to prevent the troubled product from entering Indonesia’s market, while at the same time, ensuring that the products that are not produced in-house can enter the market without hindrance.

As a number of products manage to slip into their domestic market because it is still recorded in the same tariff with other products that cannot be produced in-house.

According to the Central Statistics Agency, the number originates from textile consumption volume deviations against the volume of the domestic and import products were recorded.