The government now seemed to focus too much on safeguarding budget and fuel oil prices for transportation while somehow paying little attention to the impact of the price increase on industry.Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Legislator Ecky Awal Muharram said that the increase in the world crude prices would affect industry at home because it would boost fuel and raw material costs.
"The world crude price now has reached US$114 per barrel while fuel oils for industry are not subsidized. This would increase industry`s burden," Ecky of the House of Representatives (DPR)`s Commission VI on industry affairs said here on Thursday.
He said that the government now seemed to focus too much on safeguarding budget and fuel oil prices for transportation while somehow paying little attention to the impact of the price increase on industry.
"So, the government seems to pay more attention to consumption activities than the production activities," Ecky who is a politician of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said.
He said that one thing for sure was that the cost for raw materials must also increase. It could be seen from the import data that the import proportion was dominated, namely reaching 72 percent, by auxiliary goods, followed by capital goods 21 percent, while imports of consumption goods were only seven percent.
"So, the increase in oil prices would also raise the prices of imported commodities while the proportion of our imports is dominated by industry. Because the industrial sector would be much affected by the oil price hikes, the government should give more attention to this sector," the legislator said.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
