INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta, Minister of Industry, Airlangga Hartarto said that his party is focusing on priority programs, such as growing the industrial population. Until June 2017, the addition of manufacturing sector reached 572 large and medium scale industries, both new investment and business expansion.

"Although the efforts to grow the industrial population are not related to the absorption of the budget, but in terms of incentive facilities provided by the Ministry of Finance both in the form of tax allowance and BMDTP, which also encourage investment," said Airlangga Hartarto after the Press Conference of Financial Note and RUU APBN 2018 Jakarta, Wednesday night (16/08/2017).

He added that as of June 2017, the investment value of the industrial sector for FDI amounted to USD 7.06 billion and domestic investment of Rp52.11 trillion, which covered 8,421 projects spread throughout Indonesia.

Furthermore, Airlangga further targeted for the growth of industrial population by 2018, big and medium industries are projected to reach 2,047 companies covering agro industry, metal industry, machinery, transportation and electronics, and chemical, non-metal, textile and miscellaneous industries .

"In addition to growing the large and medium industrial population, next year, we also encourage the growth of SME's population through training or technical guidance on entrepreneurship and technical production, start-up capital assistance, and SME assistance for 1,100 SME, SME center revitalization including e- Smart SME as many as 55 centers with a target of 12,000 products, as well as restructuring
Machinery and equipment for 120 SME, "said Airlangga.

Menperin also mentioned, based on UNIDO data, the added value of the manufacturing industry in Indonesia is ranked the top 10 in the world. The achievement shows investment in the industrial sector continues to grow. "For example, investments from the pulp and paper industry in Riau and South Sumetara are quite large," he said.

In fact, the competitiveness of the national food and beverage industry is in the top four of the world and the productivity of the domestic industry for the sectors of footwear and sports apparel has passed China.

"Our brilliant industry performance also contributes to the absorption of manpower, for example, investments in the automotive industry that reach Rp16 trillion, the workforce of 5,000 people," he added

In addition, the productivity of the national cement industry over the past 2-3 years has experienced high growth with capacity of 100 million tons per year or well above Japanese production.

"We have also developed a roadmap for the development of the steel industry, one of the targets is to build clusters in Cilegon to achieve production of 10 million tons of steel per year," concluded Airlangga.