The export market for textiles and textile products as well as furniture and crafts is expected to remain sluggish until the end of this year. Both industry players rely on the domestic market and are starting to diversify their markets. Chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association (API) Jemmy Kartiwa Sastraatmaja, Tuesday (8/8/2023), said the main export markets for textiles and textile products (TPT), namely the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), were still sluggish. Weakening demand from countries and regions is expected to continue until the end of this year.
This has caused upstream TPT industry players to limit their production to only around 50 percent of normal capacity. The same thing is also done by the intermediate and downstream industry players.
“Many industrial players have shut down some of their production machines. The machines are only operated Monday-Wednesday or Monday-Thursday," said Jemmy when contacted from Jakarta.
The June 2023 edition of the Ministry of Trade's Foreign Trade Development Report noted that exports of a number of TPT commodities in January-June 2023 continued to grow negatively. The export value of man-made staple fiber and layered woven fabrics, for example, each grew minus 21.77 percent and minus 25.23 percent on an annual basis. Growth in the import value of man-made staple fiber and layered woven fabrics also contracted, respectively minus 4.89 percent and minus 23.95 percent.
According to Jemmy, one of the markets that the textile industry players hope for is the domestic market. Therefore, API hopes that there will be regulations from the government that can reduce the rush of imported TPT in the Indonesian domestic market.
“India's upstream and downstream TPT industry is also experiencing a similar situation to Indonesia. However, the Government of India is trying to protect its market and industry by implementing trade barrier regulations," he said.
This year, the Government of India has rolled out Quality Control Rules (QCO). One of them is to protect the domestic fiber industry. India has also published a technical textile development roadmap for 2047. There are 12 segments to be developed, including textiles for automotive, sports, building, household, health, packaging, bulletproof and agriculture.
