Manufacturing Industry of Indonesia also Expected to Slow in 2014

In the first quarter of 2014 the Indonesian manufacturing industry grew 5.16 percent (yoy). Indonesian Minister of Industry MS Hidayat said that the slowdown in manufacturing was caused by the recently introduced ban on exports of unprocessed minerals as well as the sharply depreciated Indonesian rupiah exchange rate (in the second half of 2013). The weaker rupiah resulted in lower demand for Indonesian manufactured products because of higher prices as raw materials need to be imported and paid in US dollars.

Hidayat said that the negative impact of the ban on exports of raw minerals will be felt for the next one or two years until smelting facilities, which are currently being built, will become operational. The export ban, part of the 2009 Mining Law, has been designed to support the establishment of value-added processing industries. Currently commodities, particularly raw ones, account for around 60 percent of the country's total exports.

Other factors that have negatively impacted the performance of the Indonesian manufacturing industry include minimum wage increases as well as higher electricity prices.

Growth of the Indonesian Manufacturing Industry 2009-2014:

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014¹
Manufacturing Industry annual % change	2.5%	5.1%	5.8%	6.4%	6.1%	6.0%

^{¹ Government projection
Source: Ministry of Industry}

‹ Back to Today's Headlines

Discuss

Please sign in or subscribe to comment on this column