Glass industry urges review of pick-up truck import plan
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Flat and Safety Glass Association (AKLP) is urging state-owned enterprises to conduct a comprehensive analysis of plans to import pick-up trucks from India in completely built-up (CBU) form.
AKLP chairman Yustinus H Gunawan said in a statement in Jakarta on Friday that the plan to import 105,000 pick-up units from India needs to be reviewed with consideration for the structure and capacity of the domestic industry, so as not to suppress utilisation rates in related sectors.
He explained that the national flat glass industry currently has an installed capacity of 2.9 million tonnes per year, operated by four companies, with a production utilisation rate of 66.9 per cent in 2025.
Meanwhile, in the downstream sector, there are 10 automotive safety glass companies with an installed capacity of 90,293 tonnes per year, equivalent to 2.25 million sets of safety glass for four-wheeled vehicles or larger, with a utilisation rate of 42 per cent.
According to him, these conditions indicate that national production capacity still has significant room for optimisation, particularly given that the installed production capacity of the four-wheeled motor vehicle industry reaches 2.59 million units per year.
Yustinus noted that domestic flat glass is the primary input for automotive safety glass production, meaning vehicle demand within the country is directly linked to the performance of both upstream and downstream segments of the glass industry.
In this context, the policy of importing 105,000 CBU vehicles is estimated to reduce demand for safety glass by approximately 10 per cent in terms of supplying domestic motor vehicle production to achieve the target of one million units in 2026.
From a regulatory standpoint, the national automotive safety glass industry already complies with Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 8210:2018, which was made mandatory through Minister of Industry Regulation Number 15 of 2025.
Automotive safety glass products also hold Domestic Component Level (TKDN) certificates with an average value exceeding 50 per cent, reflecting their contribution to domestic value added and the strengthening of the national industrial structure.
Furthermore, the quality of national safety glass has been recognised globally, as evidenced by exports of CBU vehicles and spare parts that utilise domestically produced components.
He added that if imports are still deemed necessary to meet market needs or other considerations, the approach considered more aligned with strengthening domestic industry would be through an incomplete knock-down (IKD) scheme.
Such a scheme, he said, would allow the import of components not yet produced or lacking sufficient competitiveness domestically, whilst maintaining assembly activities and the use of local components whose capacity is already available, including national automotive safety glass.
Accordingly, an import policy designed selectively and based on industrial capacity structure is considered more effective in maintaining the sustainability of the flat glass and automotive safety glass sectors, whilst supporting increased value added and sustainable national industrialisation.
Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita affirmed that Indonesia is already capable of producing pick-up vehicles independently, which serves as proof of the national automotive industry’s self-reliance, whilst providing significant economic value added to the economy.
This response was made in connection with the plan to import 105,000 pick-up trucks from India for the Koperasi Desa Merah Putih (Red and White Village Cooperatives).
The Industry Minister explained in a statement in Jakarta on Thursday (19 February) that if the procurement of 70,000 units of 4x2 pick-up vehicles were fulfilled through domestic production, it would generate backward economic linkages of approximately Rp27 trillion.