Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Indonesia’s car exports are still losing to Thailand. Gaikindo’s General Secretary, Kukuh Kumara, said that there were a number of issues that had been Indonesia’s major challenges.
“At present Thailand, although the country is relatively smaller than us, with a population of 70 million, but car production has reached 2 million. 800 thousand are used domestically, 1.2 million are exported,” he said during a joint meeting of the House of Representatives Commission V on Monday ( 7/6/20).
While in Indonesia, from the production data of 1.2 million units per year, the majority are still used domestically. While exports have only reached 300 thousand in 2019 ago.
“At present our production capacity is 2.3 million cars per year but only 1.2 million units can be utilized per year. This is what we will optimize so that we can produce vehicles that can be exported. Last year it was pretty good we could be above 300 thousand unit, “he said.
He explained, the need for harmonization of domestic rules in order to harmonize with global rules. According to him, this has to do with global competitiveness.
In addition, according to him, Indonesia also needs to improve the certification system of motor vehicle testing. Moreover, he said that currently the Indonesian domestic market is the largest market in ASEAN.
“33% of vehicles marketed in ASEAN are in Indonesia, so we should be able to do it leading there. “We want to review how we should take over that position from our neighboring countries in order to create more jobs in the automotive industry,” he explained.
In this regard, he considered Indonesia needs to improve the testing certification system. All this time, many of Indonesia’s car production certification tests have been conducted abroad.
“With the test facility, we no longer need to test other countries because we have and ultimately other countries can test in Indonesia and can be accepted in other countries. For example, those who already have it are Thailand. We need to adopt what Thailand has done,” he said .
Not only need to increase the vehicle certification test facilities, according to him the component certification test also needs to be improved. Because the number of vehicles in circulation is getting wider.
“Not just the vehicle, but the components must also have test facilities. If there is a world class motor vehicle component testing facility, this is the potential of the Indonesian automotive component industry to also become a global player. “components are sold for the after market. Indonesia already exports to 80 countries in the world of CBU vehicles,” he said.
