Gaikindo says imports are pressuring the domestic commercial vehicle industry
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Automotive Industry Association (Gaikindo) has stated that the importation of complete commercial vehicles is putting pressure on the domestic commercial vehicle industry.
According to the industry association, the importation of completely built-up (CBU) commercial vehicles creates unbalanced competition and suppresses factory utilisation in the country, where capacity is already sufficient but not optimally utilised.
“Actually, overall, the motor vehicle industry in Indonesia is self-sufficient, so it is capable of meeting domestic vehicle needs with locally produced products,” said Gaikindo General Secretary Kukuh Kumara in Jakarta on Thursday.
“Why is the vehicle industry, especially the commercial one, disrupted? Because of vehicle imports from abroad,” he said at the GAIKINDO Indonesia International Commercial Vehicle Expo (GIICOMVEC) 2026.
According to Kukuh, the current production capacity of Indonesia’s automotive industry is around 2.59 million units per year. However, actual production is still around 1.3 million to 1.4 million units, and sales figures are about 1.2 million units per year.
Kukuh noted that the utilisation rate of production facilities in the commercial vehicle segment is lower, ranging from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of production capacity for some manufacturers.
According to him, this is inseparable from the influx of imported vehicles entering in complete form, which are more competitively priced than local products because they are produced on a large scale in their countries of origin.
“We have been talking about this for quite a long time; why is there a decline? It’s clear that the decline is happening because of truck imports from other countries. It’s difficult to compete with very competitive prices,” he said.
The decline in people’s purchasing power in recent years has worsened the market conditions.
Kukuh stated that wholesale vehicle sales figures, which previously ranged from 1.2 million to 1.3 million units per year, have dropped to around 803,000 units in 2025.
“This decline has caused Indonesia’s position as the largest market in ASEAN to be overtaken by Malaysia for the first time after decades of leading, because sales have been declining for several years, in addition to the decrease in purchasing power,” he explained.
The automotive industry is one of the pillars of the national economy, recorded as contributing around 1.28 per cent to gross domestic product in the third quarter of 2025.