President urges people to buy more local goods
President urges people to buy more local goods
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto called on people again
yesterday to buy local products, saying there was no reason to
prefer foreign products because local ones were just as good and
cheaper.
"The use of local goods should be made a national drive. Love
for our own products is part of nationalism," Soeharto said when
opening PT Polysindo Eka Perkasa's purified terephthalic acid
(PTA) plant in Karawang, West Java.
He said increased use of domestic products would enable local
industries to grow and strengthen Indonesia's economic
foundation.
Soeharto said that at a recent cabinet meeting he told the
government to give top priority to buying and using local
products.
"Our local products are as good and are not more expensive
than foreign ones. There is no reason for us to prefer imported
goods," he said.
He said Indonesian industries were getting better.
"Now we are able to make machines, including textile
machines," he said.
Indonesia would continue to pursue industrialization by
improving human resource quality, optimizing the use of natural
resources and raising technological capabilities, he said.
"We hope that in 20 years our industry will be strong and well
developed enough to enable us to compete in both domestic and
foreign markets," he said.
He warned that Indonesia would just be a market for foreign
goods if it failed to strengthen its economy.
Indonesia is committed to free market under the ASEAN Free
Trade Area in 2003 and under the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation in 2020.
PTA plant
The facilities that were opened yesterday also included
Polysindo's polymer facilities and its Citarum industrial estate.
Polysindo is Texmaco Group's flagship company. Texmaco is
Indonesia's biggest polyester maker.
Texmaco's president, Marimutu Sinivasan, said the PTA plant
would make 360,000 tons of PTA a year -- a third of Indonesia's
polyester output.
He said the PTA output would feed the company's polymer plant,
which had been operational since last September with a capacity
of 330,400 tons a year.
The polymer plant in turn feeds the company's polyester staple
fiber factory, which was expanded last September to an annual
capacity of 180,000 tons.
Texmaco Jaya, another publicly-listed Texmaco unit, makes
fashion fabric and garments.
Sinivasan said his company used to buy PTA from Bakrie's
plant, which made about 500,000 tons a year.
The PTA and polymer facilities are the centerpiece of a
US$645-million expansion program.
The equipment and machinery for the plants were fabricated by
Texmaco Perkasa engineering.
"Indonesia imports roughly $12 billion in capital goods and
$12 billion in raw materials a year. Even as the country is
trying to establish an industrial infrastructure and build up
export industries like textiles and pulp, we're spending foreign
exchange to import costly capital goods and equipment needed to
build up these industries," he said.
He said one goal in vertically integrating the polyester
business and building an engineering company in Indonesia was to
break that cycle and give the country the building blocks of
industry.
Sinivasan said a sharp rise in international cotton prices had
prompted local textile makers to substitute polyester staple
fibers for cotton.
Indonesia's makes more than a million tons of PTA a year but
this meets only 56 percent of domestic demand. The shortfall is
imported.
Sinivasan said his company built the Citarum industrial estate
to enhance business partnerships between small and big
businesses. (bnt)