The people's habit of wearing new clothes at the moment of Eid can indirectly encourage the performance of the textile industry. However, this phenomenon has not been felt significant in this year's Eid.

Secretary General of the Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers Association (APSyFI) Redma Gita Wiraswasta said that the increasing sales of imported apparel products ahead of Eid is one of the factors in the decline in sales of domestic textile products.

Redma said, during this Eid period, sales of textile raw materials had actually fallen by 30%. "Utilization also drops to 70 percent for fiber and 65 percent for yarn. Whereas previously, the utilization in March 2021 was almost 90% for polyester and 75% for filaments, ”said Redma.

Redma explained, the local textile market has continued to decline since the end of March 2021, especially in the downstream areas such as weaving and apparel. He said that people prefer to buy imported apparel online compared to local textile products offline.

According to him, the textile industry has not yet recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in the first quarter of 2021, not many imported goods entered. Thus, local producers can dominate the market.

"Now, imported products are rampant, especially ahead of Eid. The demand for local textile products is running low, ”he said.

Redma said the textile industry could recover if the government could stem the invasion of imports. According to him, local products are still difficult to compete with imported products because the prices of imported apparel are sold very cheaply.

He said the problems that occurred in the textile sector continued to recur from year to year. The domination of imported apparel products has not been resolved properly, thus hampering the growth of local textile products.

"At any time, the textile industry can actually recover, as long as the government supports it with pro-domestic products," he said.