Italy provides help for local shoe industry
Italy provides help for local shoe industry
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
For those who value leather shoes made from high quality
Italian material as their first choice in footwear, but never
imagined that Italian shoes could be made in Indonesia, well
think again.
The Indonesian government and the Italian government signed a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Thursday to set up a special
center that would help boost the quality of locally made leather
shoes to match Italian products.
The center is called the Indonesian Footwear Service Center
(IFSC), located in Sidoarjo, East Java.
It will function as a training and resource center for
aspiring local cobblers. In addition it will be a source for
information, research and development in the shoe industry and a
center for consultation. The center is expected to start
operating later this year.
The Italian government has allocated a soft loan worth 10
billion lire (about US$4.56 million) to help finance the center.
The loan carries an interest rate of 0.5 percent and a repayment
period of 36 years.
The loan will be used to buy new machinery and to cover
training expenses.
The Indonesian government promised to contribute Rp 10.35
billion ($1.15 million) for the purchase of land, furniture and
the construction of the building.
Italy was chosen as a partner to develop the local shoe
industry because of the former's strong reputation in producing
high quality leather shoes.
"The (shoe industry) sector (here) is very promising.
Indonesian leather shoes are actually very impressive, made with
a high-level of skill and in very good taste," Ambassador of
Italy to Indonesia Francesco M. Greco, told the media.
"In the next five to ten years, Indonesia can become a very
tough, competitive country in leather shoes for Italy, so it will
be better to build a strategic partnership with the country now,
rather than having a possible competitor," smiled Greco.
He also said that Indonesian workers were actually skillful,
although the local industry needed some help with technology and
to be able to produce with Italian standards.
Greco expected that after years of training local cobblers,
more Italian investors would put their money into the Indonesian
shoe industry and more locally made products would be exported to
Italy.
The value of Indonesia's shoe exports reached $1.29 million in
2002 with an average growth of 1.8 percent per annum.