Indonesian Furniture Industry Squeezed by Imports, Exports as the Lifeline?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The Indonesian furniture industry is now facing dual pressures. Domestically, the market is flooded with cheap imported products, while abroad, exports have become the main support for the industry’s sustainability. This situation places business actors in a dilemma: persisting in a weakening domestic market or continuing to rely on the export market, which is full of dependencies. “Imported products enter like a flood through online platforms. We don’t even know the numbers, it could be hundreds of thousands,” Sobur told Kompas.com in Jakarta on Friday (10/4/2026). According to Sobur, the pressure in the local market is not due to a lack of domestic products, but because of the influx of cheaper and easily accessible imported goods. “It’s not because we don’t have products, but because foreign products enter in such large quantities and we can’t prevent them,” he said. On the other hand, the public’s purchasing power, which has not yet recovered, worsens the condition. “If we implement safeguards, other countries could retaliate. Our goods could also be held back there. The domestic market hasn’t really recovered. Our economic growth is still around 4 to 5 percent, that’s not enough,” Sobur stressed. According to him, a minimum growth of 8 percent is needed for the domestic market to truly strengthen. “People now choose what’s most easily accessible. They can order today, and it arrives tomorrow,” he said. These imported products generally use mixed materials with quality below the standard of local products. The market for such products, he continued, is very large, especially in the commercial sector like cafes and restaurants.