Indonesia's MDF industry promising: Executive
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian medium density fiberboard (MDF) industry has a bright future, according to the managing director of Siempelkamp GmbH & Co, a German woodworking machine maker.
Rolf Kamper told The Jakarta Post yesterday that demand for MDF would grow in line with the regional furniture industry's rapid growth.
Indonesia must increase its MDF capacity to between 1.3 million and 1.6 million cubic meters a year by 2002 from its current capacity of about 550,000 cubic meters, said Kamper who is attending the WoodWorking and Forestry Indonesia '96 exhibition.
Indonesia has five MDF plants: three of which were built by Siempelkamp, including the plants owned by PT Nitiasa Mandiri of the Sumalindo group in Samarinda, East Kalimantan; PT Hutrindo of the Manunggal group in Palembang, South Sumatra; and PT Canang Indah in Medan, North Sumatra.
The Sumalindo group owns another MDF plant in Samarinda and PT Masari has a plant in Karawang, West Java. They were built by Swedish company Sund and German company Mendepresse, respectively.
PT Mega Rimba Karya Tama of the Napan group is building an MDF plant in Palembang with machinery supplied by Siempelkamp. The new facility is scheduled to open next April.
Kamper said the five plants had annual capacities ranging from 100,000 cubic meters to 120,000 cubic meters of MDF.
The factories sell more than 50 percent of their MDF overseas, Kamper said.
MDF was introduced some decades ago as an alternative to plywood and solid wood for making furniture and has become increasingly popular, especially in the United States, Europe and more recently in Asia.
MDF is cheaper than plywood and solid wood, and is considered an environmentally friendly product because it can be produced from wood of fast-growing trees and all other types of wood.
Malaysia, Thailand and other countries developed MDF plants before Indonesia because they were short of natural forests.
Kamper said the international price of MDF had dropped to between US$220 and $300 a cubic meter from between $350 and $450 three years ago because of oversupply.
But oversupply will soon be taken up because MDF market demand is growing between 20 percent and 25 percent yearly, Kamper said.
He predicted MDF shortages within two years.
"Thus, although the price is down now, it's still good for Indonesia to build more MDF plants," he said.
An MDF plant costs between $60 million and $70 million and takes two years to build. (jsk)