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PT Indofarma, the troubled Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical company, has shipped five containers of medicines to Afghanistan, presenting the export as a sign of resilience even as it works to avoid delisting and presses through a court-supervised debt restructuring.

The shipment left the company's production facility in Cibitung, east of Jakarta, the firm said in a statement on Saturday. Chief executive Sahat Sihombing said Indofarma, which trades on the Indonesia Stock Exchange under the ticker INAF, would keep expanding its export reach by strengthening product quality and lifting the competitiveness of Indonesia's pharmaceutical industry abroad. Drawing on more than three decades of export experience, he said, the company believes Indonesian drugs can compete and earn trust in global markets.

The export was framed by management as evidence that Indofarma can hold onto international markets during its turnaround. Commissioner Didi Agus Mintadi said keeping export activity alive carries strategic value for the restructuring, contributing foreign-exchange earnings and reinforcing the position of Indonesian pharmaceutical products overseas. Arif Rahmawan Afandi, a commercial official at sister company Bio Farma, said the shipment reflected international confidence in the quality of Indonesia's drug industry.

A company in deep distress

The upbeat tone sits against a difficult backdrop. Indofarma's shares have been suspended since July 2, 2024, and the company was named in mid-2025 among roughly 55 firms at risk of being removed from the exchange. Trading was halted because of its deteriorating finances, including negative equity, which stood at around 891 billion rupiah, about 50 million US dollars, at the end of the third quarter of 2025. The company carried an accumulated deficit of about 1.57 trillion rupiah and liabilities of roughly 1.5 trillion rupiah, the largest portion of which is owed to shareholders.

The restructuring is being carried out under a court-approved composition plan, known locally as a homologation, reached after debt-payment proceedings in 2024. The company has also been dogged by governance problems. A 2023 audit by Indonesia's Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) flagged indications of fraud, and a separate case involving the procurement of medical equipment at subsidiary PT Indofarma Global Medika carried an estimated state loss of about 146.6 billion rupiah, or some 8 million dollars. At an earlier stage of the crisis, the company also fell behind on employee wages.

Cost-cutting has been severe. Indofarma reduced its permanent workforce to a handful of staff in 2025, terminating hundreds of employees as part of what management described as efficiency measures tied to the restructuring, and shifted to a made-to-order production model to lift capacity utilization.

State backing and a turnaround bet

Indofarma is part of Indonesia's state pharmaceutical holding, led by vaccine maker Bio Farma and also including Kimia Farma. Its recovery is being supported by the state-owned enterprises authority, Indonesia's sovereign wealth fund Danantara and Bio Farma. Under plans outlined by Danantara, Indofarma is eventually to be consolidated under Kimia Farma as the government reshapes the sector. Danantara's chief operating officer has signaled that the fund will not inject fresh capital unless the company can show it is viable.

Management is betting that 2026 will be a turning point. The company has set a target of lifting revenue by 112 percent year on year from its 2025 estimate, and says cost control through the third quarter of 2025 has narrowed its operating-loss ratio. By the middle of 2025 it claimed to have completed about 30 percent of its recovery plan. Optimizing exports is one of the named pillars of that plan, alongside lean manufacturing, a rebalanced product portfolio and tighter governance.

The Afghanistan shipment is modest in scale, and Indofarma did not disclose its value. But for a drugmaker that has not traded publicly for two years and is carrying negative equity, keeping an export channel open forms part of the case it is making to regulators, creditors and its state backers that the business is worth saving.