Some time ago, the United States Department of Commerce (USDOC) announced the final decision on countervailing duty (CVD) or import duty for biodiesel products from Indonesia between 34.45% — 64.73%. The decision is lower than the temporary import duty issued in August 2017, ranging from 41.06% — 68.28%.
Chairman of the Indonesian Biofuel Producers Association (Aprobi), Paulus Tjakrawan explained that businesses had in fact stopped exporting to the US since 2017. The reason for this is that the price of products from Indonesia is less competitive than biodiesel produced in the US.
Paulus revealed that Indonesia's installed capacity for biodiesel production reaches 12 million kiloliters (kl) per year. However, the domestic absorption rate is only about 3 million kl per year.
With this comparison, he continued, the results of biodiesel production are only absorbed by 25% domestically. Therefore, producers are now looking for new export destinations.
“Of course we are continuing to look for new markets, for example China and India,” he told Bisnis, Monday (20/11).
He explained that exports are needed to boost the performance of the biodiesel industry domestically. Indonesia can obtain greater added value by exporting downstream palm oil products.
“For that we need to export; otherwise the industry's performance will be low and it will impact efficiency, price, labor force, etc.,” he added.
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