Govt To Increase Investment In Petrochemical Industry

Jakarta, Aug 14 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has planned to increase its investment in the petrochemical industry in an effort to reduce the country`s dependency on imported raw materials, according to an official source. "Last year, the cost of imported of raw materials for the petrochemical industry reached US$5.1 billion. Import of polypropylene reached 500,000 tonnes, butadiene 63,000 tonnes and ethylene 300,000 tonnes," the director general of basic manufacturing industries, Panggah Susanto, said here on Monday. He stated that the government had already developed a number of strategies to reduce the country`s dependency on foreign raw materials. "One of them involves strengthening the chemical industry - from petrochemical to refinery sectors. The program would require a lot of domestic and foreign investment," Panggah added. He said the government could support its own strategies by creating a conducive business environment. "In order to boost capital investment in the petrochemical sector, incentives will be provided, such as tax holidays, tax allowances, and exemption on import duties for capital goods, among other things," Panggah noted. He said the government also sought to increase the added value of natural resources such as oil and gas to produce various petrochemical products, so that the nation would have to rely less on imported raw materials. "Improvement of quality products, meanwhile, would be done through implementation of Indonesia National Standars (SNI) and optimizing the use of domestic products," Panggah added.