Industri Pulp dan Kertas: Proteksi untuk Siapa?

Pulp and paper industry were growing fast during 1985-94, where many changes on tariff or regulation for these industries occured. In 1989, for instance, tariff for paper (excluded newsprint) was around 30-40% --which then turned out to be 20% in 1994-- while 5% tarif was imposed to newsprint product, and 5% surcharge was imposed one year later to protect domestic and foreign producers from dumping. In 1992, this tariff and surcharge became 20% each, which made domestic price for newsprint 40% higher than the international price. In 1994, the government lowered the tariff rate for all improrted paper to 20% and abandoned the surcharge. Based on partial equilibrium method developed by Hufbauer and Elliot, the author tells that a tariff reduction to 0% would make the consumer surplus increase to Rp 96 billion, and producer surplus decrease to Rp 66 billion. This measure would also reduce the government revenue (from tariff) to Rp 30 billion, which made the overall efficiency gain to the economy Rp 123 billion due to the removal of the deadweight loss.