Recently the government proposed to impose anti-dumping duty on imports of polyester staple fibre (PSF) from India, Taiwan, and China. The same has been out rightly rejected by the Indonesian Textile Association (API). According to API, it will have a negative impact on the textile spinning and its downstream sectors. In the previous year, there were around 30 companies engaged in production of PSF, which serviced around 225 spinning enterprises, 1067 fabric manufacturing units and almost 1,000 apparel production factories and demand for PSF outstrips supply in the domestic Indonesian market. In the previous year, the 30 companies put together produced approximately 500,000 tons of PSF of which 286,000 tons were exported. The country imported around 749,000 tons of PSF in the same year, which was complimented by locally produced PSF sold in the domestic market, totaling to 214,000 tons. According to API, additionally a few PSF plants are planning to undertake a maintenance turnaround, which will reduce the supply from domestic PSF producers and will actually create a situation, whereby, PSF will be in short supply and imports will have to be increased. Taking all the facts into consideration, API has pleaded with the government to not impose anti-dumping duty on imports of PSF as it would impact the textile industry to a very great extent and instead advise the local PSF producers to reduce their costs, which are higher than those prevailing in other countries. |
|