Around 60% of Indonesia’s wood-based industry has collapsed and more could follow, according to the Indonesian Forestry Society (MPI).
A high-cost economy and ageing machinery have been blamed for the situation which has made the industry uncompetitive against more efficient economies such as China and Malaysia.
MPI chairman Sudrajat DP said that while China and Malaysia were able to produce cheaper products, Indonesian manufacturers were having to bear both legal and illegal costs.
He suggested the government could help by assisting the industry to restructure its machinery and expand the export market.
And, he said, the government should solve the illegal logging problem, explaining that it was hard for manufacturers to determine the legal status of forest products, resulting in some buying illegal timber which they could not use.
