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Not only looming higher excise taxes plague Indonesia's clove farmers but also bad weather is drastically curbing clove production in 2017. I Ketut Budiman, Secretary General of the Indonesian Clove Farmers Association (APCI), said clove production may only reach 11,000 tons this year. This would be a disastrous harvest. Under normal circumstances Indonesia produces more than 100,000 tons of clove in one year.
Indonesian clove farmers are optimistic that the nation's clove production in 2016 will be similar to last year's production realization in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 tons, provided that the weather is good and there will be no excessive rainfall. I Ketut Budiman, Secretary General of the Indonesian Clove Farmers Association (APCI), said Indonesia's clove farmers will not raise their production target in order to maintain clove prices at profitable levels. Currently, the clove price at the farmer level is IDR 100,000 (approx. USD $7.19) per kilogram, while farmers' production costs are estimated at IDR 75,000 per kg.
Starting from January 2015, Indonesian tobacco products are subject to an average tax rise of 8.7 percent. The excise tax on machine-rolled cigarettes becomes IDR 355 (USD $0.03) and on hand-rolled cigarettes IDR 290 (USD $0.02) per stick. The tax hike is implemented by the government in a move to increase state income through tax revenues. The higher excise tax is expected to have a minor effect on tobacco sales in Indonesia as retail prices for cigarettes remain among the lowest in the Southeast Asian region.
HM Sampoerna, Indonesia's largest tobacco company, decided to close two of its seven hand-rolled cigarette factories as the company needs restructuring due to its declining market share in the country's hand-rolled cigarettes industry. The market share fell from 30.4 percent in 2009 to 23.1 percent in 2013 as consumers are shifting to machine-rolled cigarettes. HM Sampoerna's hand-rolled cigarette plants in Jember and Lumajang (both in East Java) will be closed on 31 May 2014 and will lead to the termination of 4,900 employees.
HM Sampoerna, the largest tobacco company of Indonesia, controls about 29 percent of the Indonesian tobacco market. The company operates nine manufacturing facilities in Indonesia: two machine-made kretek production facilities as well as seven hand-rolled kretek production facilities (kretek cigarettes are the highly popular clove cigarettes, a trademark of Indonesia). The company also distributes the famous Marlboro brand on the domestic market. In 2005, Sampoerna was sold to Philip Morris, an international cigarette and tobacco giant.
Gudang Garam is a leading Indonesian manufacturer of kretek cigarettes (clove cigarettes), which are the favorite choice of Indonesians. Indonesia has a large and diverse tobacco consumer market with a significant percentage of adult smokers. In 2012, it was estimated that 67 percent of Indonesian men and 5 percent of Indonesian women smoke (Indonesia has a total population of over 240 million people). In 2012, Gudang Garam had a market share of about 20 percent of the domestic cigarette market.
After the Indonesian government abandoned the idea to increase excises on cigarettes, the production of cigarettes in Indonesia is expected to increase to between 355 and 360 billion cigarettes in 2014. However, in order to meet that target, it is also important that the country's macroeconomy - particularly the inflation rate - remains stable. This year, Indonesian cigarette production is expected to reach 340 billion cigarettes. Indonesia has one of the world's largest markets for cigarettes.
The Indonesian government has limited the surface area of plantations that can be owned by a company or by a group of companies that have one shared management. This new regulatory framework, stipulated in Permentan No 98/Permentan/OT.140/9/2013 with regard to plantation estates' licensing guidelines, is applied to 11 commodities: tea, sugarcane, oil palm, coconut, cotton, rubber, coffee, cacao, cashew nuts, pepper as well as cloves. The new law has been approved by the minister of Justice and Human Rights Amir Syamsudin.
Philip Morris Indonesia, Philip Morris International's affiliate in Indonesia, will invest USD $174 million to increase production capacity of white and clove (kretek) cigarettes. About USD $78 billion will be used to enhance production capacity at its two existing factories in Karawang (West Java), while the remaining USD $96 million will be used to establish a new factory, specifically for the production of Marlboro-branded cigarettes. This new factory will be located next to its other two factories in Karawang.
Spending on advertisement in Indonesia's media in the first six months of 2013 has grown 25 percent to IDR 51.16 trillion (USD $4.65 billion) compared to the same period last year. This sharp increase was supported by a six percent rise in advertising volume to 3.5 million advertising spots (advertising space) on television, and in newspapers and magazines. With about 68 percent of total spending, television generates most of the country's advertisement spending, followed by newspapers (30 percent) and magazines/tabloids (2 percent).
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One of the last decisions of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration before being replaced by the new Joko Widodo-led administration was to raise the tobacco excise by an average of 8.7 percent per 1 January 2015. This excise will be applied to all tobacco-related manufactured products. The higher excise, stipulated by a Finance Ministry decree, will boost state income and will also help to curb smoking. About 65 percent of Indonesian men smoke, supported by the cheap price of a package of cigarettes.
Widespread cigarette consumption among Indonesians (especially men) can have a negative impact on the country’s current demographic bonus. One of Indonesia’s strongpoints in terms of economic make-up is that it has a large and young, thus potentially productive, population. Indonesians in the productive age (15 to 64 years) outnumber those that are categorized as youth (below 15 years) and elderly (over 65 years). This large productive group should provide a boost to Indonesia’s economy in the next two decades.
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