In the first quarter of this year, due to lower demand, Indonesia's chemical production and chemicals decreased by 8.5% over the same period of last year. If compared with the fourth quarter of last year, chemical production and chemicals decreased by 4.7%.
Fajar Budiono, secretary general of Indonesia's aromatics and olefins and plastics industry association (Inaplas), told reporters that according to the siklus, the trend in the first quarter of each year is lukewarm, whether raw material supply or demand Even from the beginning of the year, the plastics industry faced a tax plan for plastics since last year.
As a result of this rumors, the expansion of business plans, especially in the downstream industry, caused uncertainty. 'There is a downward trend in February, everyone is competing to sell inventory, in addition to the shorter working days in February, the current plastic taxation Still unclear, causing an uncertain situation.'
Fachar said that when the demand is low, other problems are the increasing trend of imports of plastic products. The Indonesian aromatics and olefin and plastics industry associations have carefully investigated the results and believe that since the implementation of the post border inspection, imports of plastic products have been imported. The increase in the amount was due to the fact that the importers who used diamonds used the ordinance and the import did not conform to the designated master list.
In addition, the import volume of plastic waste for plastics industry recovery (daur ulang) has also increased. In particular, the value-added tax (PPN) of plastics is still being recycled, which makes the industry feel heavy. 'Plastic waste is still imported. The supply of raw materials is still insufficient, and waste management is still poor. As a result, once demand increases, the supply of raw materials will be insufficient. It will no longer be necessary to import, and if it is taxed, it will make the situation difficult.
In the second season, thanks to Ramadan and Lebaran, we hope that the situation will improve. 'We hope that the situation in the first quarter of this year will be reduced by the second quarter and it looks like it has begun to improve.'
Previously, according to the statistics of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), in January and February of this year, imports of plastics and plastic products reached 1.426 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 22.58% from the 1.163 billion U.S. dollars of the same period last year.
Fachar said that the import volume from Vietnam is getting higher and higher, from 2,000 tons per month, it is now increased to 5,000 tons. This year, with the increase in demand for plastics use industry, ie food and beverage processing industry, the petrochemical industry is also forecasted. Will increase by 5%.