Manufacture of Machinery for Agriculture to be Prioritized
Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 | 17:21 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Department of Industry is to prioritize the development of manufacturing machinery for agricultural process products, including equipment for palm oil and sugar processing, construction and farming machinery.
Machinery groups such as these will be developed in order to meet domestic industrial demand.

Anshari Bukhari, Director General of Metal, Machinery, Textiles and Multifarious Industries at the Department Industry, said that in order to develop national machinery manufacturing, the government has issued a regulation to limit the import of used machines.

“This regulation is also aimed at further increasing growth of national machinery manufacturing,” said Anshari yesterday (4/4).

The director general went on to say that currently the utilization level of national machinery manufacturing has reached 59 percent.

The Department of Industry is targeting that the utilization level reach 80 percent by 2009.

Anshari acknowledged there have been complaints from many companies that their machinery is old.

They have asked the government for assistance to support the re-structuring of national machinery manufacturing.

However, not all requests can be fulfilled by the government.

Maruli Ferdinand