REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian Ministry of Industry has urged the domestic pharmaceutical industry to capitalize on opportunities to boost sales to the ASEAN market of 650 million people.

"The ASEAN market of 650 million people offers an opportunity for our existing advanced upstream pharmaceutical industry," Director General of Chemical Industry of the Ministry of Industry Harjanto informed Antara here on Tuesday.

Therefore, the government is preparing numerous policies to support investment in the pharmaceutical industry in Indonesia.

Besides preparing the road map for the pharmaceutical industry, the government is also preparing the investment deregulation policy in the field of medicine.

One of the formulated policies is to provide fiscal incentives, such as tax allowance and tax holidays to investors who invest in Indonesia.

Harjanto also remarked that the policy to ease the permit issuance process for pharmaceutical production and distribution was also important.

"We have faced many obstacles in the path to ease the process of issuing production permits. It is important, and the Ministry of Industry is not in charge of the provisions," noted Harjanto.

Currently, 170 pharmaceutical industries are operating in Indonesia, with most of them producing ready to distribute medicines.

The chemical, pharmaceutical, and traditional medicine industry in Indonesia has become one of the drivers of the nation's industrial growth as the economy grew 10.21 percent in the third quarter of 2015.

The figure skyrocketed as compared to the 1.12 percent growth recorded in the same period in 2014.

The highest growth was observed in 2012 when the figure reached 12.78 percent.

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