The stretch of the textile or garment industry in DIY, both local and export markets, has begun to appear after being hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has not ended until now. Unfortunately, the revival of the garment industry cannot quickly recover as usual due to limited raw materials and the public's purchasing power has not yet recovered. "We are already at our lowest point due to the pandemic, now activities are starting to reopen so that the textile industry has started to emerge. Nationally, Indonesia is quite well developed for the garment industry, currently competing with India, Bangladesh and Vietnam," said Iwan Susanto, Chair of the Provincial Governing Body (BPP) of the DIY Indonesian Textile Association (API) in Yogyakarta, Tuesday (12/7/2022).

Iwan said that the garment industry can be divided into two segments, namely the local market and the export market.

The development or progress of the textile industry specifically for the export market segment has actually been stuck since 2021. But it depends on which direction the export market is headed and the Russian-Ukrainian war is hampered, especially to exports in the affected areas.

“I saw that my garment friends in DIY were exporting quite smoothly and there had been no problems so far. So slowly they are increasing their capacity again one by one, but many have reached 100 percent,” he said.

As for the local market for the garment industry in DIY, Iwan said that it had started to rise, only being constrained by the condition of the raw materials.

As cotton has gone up to 100 percent since the pandemic, companies that use cotton or mori cloth are particularly affected.

So many garment industry players have switched to relying on the support of rayon raw materials.

“Those who can switch raw materials to rayon are the ones who are able to survive, including switching to alternative raw materials such as polyester and so on. Even though purchasing power has not recovered, this is a challenge between the recovery of activity and purchasing power which will be quite affected in the future," he said.

At the same time, he hopes that there will be government support so as not to open the import faucet as much as possible because there have been many loopholes for illegal imports.

Because Indonesia is a big market, so it is necessary to be concerned about imports and illegal imports under current conditions.

So it needs a stronger commitment from the government in protecting the domestic garment industry which 80 percent is still supported by imports so far.

"The value of DIY exports in May 2022 reached US$ 35.7 million, down 36.70 percent compared to April 2022. The biggest decline in exports in May 2022 compared to April 2022 occurred in non-knitted garments of US$ 8.1 million or 37.85 percent. The import value reached US$10.1 million, down 14.41 percent compared to April 2022," added the Head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) DIY Sugeng Arianto.