Pharmaceuticals Affected by Rupiah Slump

The rupiah’s weakening against the United States dollar has affected the domestic pharmaceutical industry, which imports around 90 percent of its raw ingredients. The imports of raw ingredients had always burdened pharmaceutical company.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Drugs are produced at a PT Kalbe Farma factory in Cikarang, Bekasi, West Java, on Monday (2/5/2011).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The rupiah’s weakening against the United States dollar has affected the domestic pharmaceutical industry, which imports around 90 percent of its raw ingredients.

Pharmaceutical company PT Dexa Medica director Gunawan Lukman said in Jakarta on Friday (7/9/2018) that imports of raw ingredients had always burdened his company. Nevertheless, he continued that Dexa would not take any strategic steps against the rupiah’s weakening. “We will observe how the [rupiah] exchange rate develops in the coming days. Currently, we are trying to increase our efficiency and not to immediately increase our prices,” he said.