"Labour-intensive industry will never become a sunset industry," Secretary General of the Ministry of Industry Anshari Bukhari said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government will give priority to labour-intensive industry development because it could absorb a big number of workers and contribute one-third to the country`s industrial growth, a senior official said.

"Labour-intensive industry contributes about 30 percent to the national industrial growth," Secretary General of the Ministry of Industry Anshari Bukhari said here on Tuesday.

He said that of the 108 million workers employed a processing industries in the country, about 14.6 percent worked in the labour-intensive industry such as textile and textile products, footwear, furniture, food and beverage, and small and medium-scale industries.

The secretary general said that a footwear industry with a capital of US$10 million, for exampple, could employ some 10 thousand workers.

Therefore the government, in this case the ministry of industry, will give priority to the development of labour-intensive industry.

"Labour-intensive industry will never become a sunset industry," he said.

He said that even banks in the country had agreed that labour-intensive industry would never be declared as a sunset industry which faced difficulties in obtaining credits.

"We have agreed with the banking sector that the assessment on businesses that would be declared as a sunset industry should not be judged based on a business sector criteria but on individual firm criteria," Anshari said.

He said that to protect labour-intensive industry, the ministry of industry was doing its best so that labour-intensive industry would be allowed to postpone the implementation of wage increases in 2013.

Anshari said that his ministry had also proposed that labour-intensive industry be given income tax and corporate tax incentives. "We have submitted a proposal asking for a cut in the two types of taxes at least by five percent," he said.

"If the wage increase problem could be solved I think national industry would grow by 7.1 percent next year," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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