Alfitria Nefi P, Jakarta – The Corps of Alumni of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Students (KAHMI), Textile Rayon, suspects that rising import quotas for yarn and fabric are causing layoffs and the closure of domestic textile factories.
"Many companies have shut down and laid off workers because they cannot compete with imported products," said Agus Riyanto, Executive Director of KAHMI Textile Chapter, in a written statement on Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
According to data from the Indonesian Filament Yarn and Fiber Producers Association (Apsyfi), at least 60 domestic textile companies have collapsed over the past two years, leaving around 250,000 employees unemployed.
Agus said that textile import quotas have been increasing every year since 2016. Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that yarn and fabric imports were only 230,000 tons and 724,000 tons, respectively, in 2016.
However, by 2024, yarn and fabric imports had surged to 462,000 tons and 939,000 tons.
"This means that the import quotas issued by the Ministry of Industry have taken a significant portion of the domestic market from local products," Agus explained.
He added that not all textile entrepreneurs have benefited from the higher import quotas. He said he received numerous complaints from business owners who could only operate at less than a third of their annual production capacity.
In response to these complaints, Agus suggested that the Ministry of Industry may have granted import quotas only to certain entrepreneurs. He alleged that just four individuals, each owning multiple companies, hold the importer identification number for producers (API-P).
Agus further explained that the import quota issue has contributed to the decline of the textile industry. He said that according to Farhan Aqil Syauqi, Secretary General of APSyFI, the contribution of the textile and textile products (TPT) sector to Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) has steadily fallen each year.
The sector's contribution to GDP dropped from 1.16 percent in 2016 to 0.99 percent in 2024, while the TPT trade balance fell from US$3.6 billion in 2016 to US$2.4 billion in 2024.
Although BPS reported that the TPT industry grew 4.35 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2025, Aqil said the agency did not account for illegal imports, which would have reduced the GDP figure.
Aqil also raised concerns about a possible textile import quota mafia.
"Moreover," he said, "the Ministry of Industry rejected the proposal to impose anti-dumping duties on filament yarn." He called for a further investigation into the alleged import quota mafia.
Tempo reached out to Febri Hendri Antoni Arief, spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry, for a response to the allegations of a textile import quota mafia. As of the publication of this article, Febri had not replied to messages sent via WhatsApp.
– Oyuk Ivani Siagian contributed to the writing of this article.