VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Industry Ministry would optimize machinery restructurization in small and medium-scale furniture industry to improve productivity as well as quality and expand its export market.

Export of furniture products has recorded a 30.8 percent increase during January to August 2021, compared to the export in the same period of 2020.

"This has shown that our furniture products can compete in global market. Moreover, our products are unique and innovative, thanks to various breakthroughs by industry operators in order to improve competitiveness," the ministry's acting Director General of Small and Medium Scale Industry Reni Yanita said in a statement here on Sunday.

Under the restructurization program, the ministry would provide discount price that could be reimbursed to SMEs bought machinery during a certain period.

The ministry would provide 25 percent discount for imported machine and 40 percent discount for locally-made machine.

"All SMEs could take part in this program, referring to the Industry Ministry Regulation. The program is expected to encourage the development of production technology," she said.

Indonesia's furniture export has recorded a positive growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Export in 2020 has increased by 12.2 percent to US$2.19 billion compared to export in the previous year.

Among the main destination countries for Indonesian furniture export are the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The ministry has also helped SMEs in the sector to hold partnership with large-scale industry as part of efforts to build supply chain ecosystem, hence it would improve efficiency in production process.

"To improve small-scale industry capability in fulfilling large-scale industry's specification, we have trained small industries to increase their products' quality," she said. (antaranews)