Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani Indrawati together with other Ministries/Institutions (K/L) will continue to monitor the massive layoffs in the textile garment industry and its impact on the economy. "We will monitor the phenomenon of layoffs specifically together with other K/L," said Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani at a press conference in Jakarta, Thursday. Sri Mulyani said monitoring of the issue would be carried out because the textile sector was actually still showing significant growth, even contributing to export performance.

According to him, exports of apparel and accessories with the HS61 code were still growing in September 2022 by 19.4 percent, followed by exports of apparel and non-knitted accessories with the HS62 code which also grew 37.5 percent.

In addition, exports of other textile products such as footwear with the HS64 code also continued to grow 41.1 percent in the same period, which indicates that production in the textile garment sector has not experienced significant disruptions.

"We also continue to encourage LPEI as the Ministry of Finance's SMV to encourage diversification of export destinations. On the other hand, we also continue to look at our ability to guard against risks from the economic slowdown in developed countries," said Sri Mulyani.

Sri Mulyani even suspected that what had happened was that the company was relocating its factory in line with improving infrastructure conditions elsewhere in Indonesia or because entrepreneurs wanted to find areas with better labor wages.

"With better and more connected infrastructure, there will be a factory reallocation to look for relatively conducive conditions for wages. We will pay attention to the details of the reallocation phenomenon of Indonesia's manufacturing position, from regions with high wages to low wages," he said.

Previously, the West Java Textile Product Entrepreneurs Association (PPPTJB) stated that there would be negative impacts from geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine, one of which was massive layoffs and the closure of textile garment factories.

PPPTJB noted that of the 124 companies in West Java, there were 64,165 workers who had become victims of layoffs, and 18 companies were forced to close because they could no longer survive in the midst of this difficult situation.