Indonesian toy and games manufacturers struggle to compete with Chinese competition, even in the domestic market.

Anshari Bukhari of the Department of Industry says:

The national toy industry still can’t really compete with China directly. Because of that the local industry has to focus on getting into niche, or unexploited areas.
(Industri mainan dalam negeri memang belum bisa bersaing dengan Cina secara langsung. Karena itu, industri lokal harus masuk ke segmen-segmen yang belum tergarap.)

According to Industry department figures of sixty registered toy makers in 1991 only fifteen remain standing today. If trends do not improve and if the still surviving toy makers are unable to compete it is feared the local industry will disappear.

Stuffed Toys from U.D. Delapan Sembilan in Surabaya.

Chinese toy imports, says Anshari, are 60% cheaper than local manufactures and this is partly because the Chinese products that make it to Indonesia are often those that could not be sold in China itself, and are therefore off-loaded cheaply here.

Consumers here don’t take that into account, the Chinese toys here just keep selling.
(Konsumen di sini tidak memandang itu, sehingga mainan itu tetap laku dijual disini.)

The Indonesian government, he says, cannot take action against the imports according to anti-dumping rules. Instead the government recommends that Indonesian toy manufacturers target areas that their Chinese competitors do not play in, and to this end, the authorities are willing and able to point out niche areas of interest. He claims that the Trade department and the Foreign Affairs department work together to discover information about global toy demand trends.