VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

President Joko Widodo encouraged the domestic automotive industry to continue to work hard and spawn innovation. He hopes the Indonesian automotive market can be controlled by the domestic automotive industry.

"Do not let our large country market be controlled by imported cars. It must be controlled by cars produced in our own country," the president said after reviewing the 2018 Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show at ICE BSD City on Thursday. August 2, 2018.

To realize this, the committed government will continue to support and assist the national automotive industry. One of them was when the President met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to resolve the problem of Indonesia's automotive production exports to Vietnam.

"Yesterday I met with the Prime Minister of Vietnam, I said bluntly about the obstacles to our automotive exports. It turned out that it could be resolved. If there are more problems, I will discuss again with the Vietnamese Prime Minister," he said.

In addition, the government is also preparing various incentives for the national automotive industry. A number of tax breaks are being considered for the automotive industry that invests in activities such as vocational training for workers and others.

"Including tax holidays that are much more aggressive, tax allowances, and those under study, super deductions, for taxes where company costs for activities such as vocational training can be cut 200 percent of taxable income. This will be huge but still in a study at the Minister of Finance, "he said.

Regarding innovation, the President said that currently Indonesia needs an innovation in the form of implementing 20 percent biodiesel or B20 by bringing more environmentally friendly vehicles. Some countries are said to have succeeded in implementing such a policy.

"Brazil in 1970 was able to implement a 100 percent bioethanol vehicle made from local sugar cane products. How come we who have millions of tons of oil palm production cannot solve this?" the President said.

With the implementation of B20, the government has calculated foreign exchange savings of almost USD6 billion. In addition, the price of Indonesian palm oil will also be raised to USD100 per ton.

"The price of crude oil is USD70 per barrel and assuming an increase in the absorption of biodiesel will raise the price of palm oil to USD100 per ton. This is a huge jump. If we can implement it, the country will save foreign exchange of USD5.98 billion so we will concentrate there so this process will follow me continuously, "he said. ( biro pers )