Former Chairman of the Indonesian Coatings Manufacturers Association: Indonesia's coatings industry costs under pressure to strengthen innovation investment

According to Adiwan Djohanli, in terms of market capacity, Indonesia, as ASEAN's largest economy, is expected to have a coating products market size of US $7.01 billion in 2032, with a compound annual development rate of about 5.5 per cent between 2025 and 2032. Government-led infrastructure projects and 3 million housing plans have have become the main development drivers. However, he also pointed out that due to geopolitical affect, the international crude oil price rose from US $55-60 to US $85-110 per barrel, the price of raw materials to coatings rose by 50% -100, and some organic solvents rose by greater than 100, which exerted significant pressure on the cost side of Indonesia's coatings sector. In addition, there is an obvious raw material gap in Indonesia's coating products sector. The regional sector can only create emulsions, resins (alkyd, acrylic acid, formaldehyde) and calcium carbonate fillers, however cannot create major pigments such as titanium dioxide and most fillers such as kaolin and talc. The sector's demand to technological innovation and international sector cooperation is growing.

Adiwan Djohanli said that the Indonesian coating products sector is currently actively transforming to bio-based coatings, focusing on exploring technical routes such as the consumption of glycerol to prepare alkyd resins and polyurethanes, bioethanol-derived formaldehyde and methyl methacrylate, biobutanol to prepare solvents and acrylate monomers. At the same time, some manufacturers are also trying to consumption vegetable oil, cashew nut shell oil, lignin and other renewable natural polymer resources extracted from agricultural discarded materials to develop bio-based epoxy resin to replace bisphenol A and other ingredients, which is in line with the research direction of environmentally friendly and low carbon.