JAKARTA— Domestic demand for crude steel keeps increasing. In 2009 steel demand was about 7.4 tons, hiking into 12.7 tons in 2014. Infrastructure, construction, shipyard, and automobile industry require more steel supply.
Minister of Industry Mr Saleh Husin said there must be more investment in steel production in order to provide adequate supply of steel to domestic demands and to reduce dependency on imported steel. “Infrastructure alone, worth some IDR 5,000 trillion up to 2019, requires some 17.5 million tons of steel each year,” said the Minister in “Conference & Technology Forum for Indonesia Steel Industry Development” in Jakarta on 24 November 2015.
That’s why the ministry puts metal (especially iron and steel) industry among other prioritised industries. Metal industry produces materials for other industries— shipyard, oil and gas, heavy equipment, automobile, and electronics industries.
Ministry of Industry’s data indicate that there are 1,167 steel industries that employ over 300,000 work forces. However, downstream steel industry grows faster than its upstream counterpart. This gap causes lack domestic steel supply for intermediate and downstream steel industry. “We should depend on considerable supply of imported steel,” said the Minister.
