Kebumen roofing tiles a precarious source of income

Singgir Kartana, Contributor/Kebumen

Kebumen has long been known as the center of the roofing tile industry with thousands of small, medium and large businesses in the regency.

Yet, the business is not as lucrative as it appears. Problems ranging from a decline in business orders to environmental damage have been shadowing it for the last few years.

There has been a significant drop in business orders. This is mostly due to the emergence of similar roofing tile suppliers in other parts of the country such as Jatiwangi, West Java, and Karangpilang, East Java, in addition to the toll taken by the economic crisis in 1997.

During the crisis, from which the country has yet to make a full recovery, the roofing tile industry was among the most affected, especially because the housing industry -- its main market -- was also adversely affected by the crisis.

Many business owners reported that orders had declined by up to 60 percent due to the crisis and the heightened competition in the industry.

"Before the economic downturn, I could sell up to 600,000 roofing tiles per month. Now I'm lucky if I can sell 200,000 a month," explained M Fuad, a roofing tile businessman from Petanahan.

Marketing has also been a problem, for most tile producers in the region, as many are focused more on production than marketing. As a result, piles of roofing tiles have often accumulated at the point of production.

Desperate producers are often forced to drop prices to rock- bottom levels, an unable to turn a profit. In Kedawung, for example, there used to be several hundred producers, but now there are just 195, who have managed to keep operating.

Finally, in 2002 the business started to show signs of recovery with the establishment of dozens of new producers.

From a quality point of view, accordingly, there has also been a decline, especially due to the decreasing quality of raw materials used.

With over 3,800 roofing tile businesses of all sizes operating in the region, the clay needed for the industry here is more than 750,000 cubic meters per month. So far, rice fields have been the most favorite source of clay.

However, unregulated and unmanaged quarrying of clay has not only caused environmental problems, but also a decrease in the quality. A reduced kaolinite content in the clay has resulted in fewer high-quality roofing tiles.

It is for these particular reasons that the Kebumen regency administration has linked up with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to deal with the problems related to the supply of raw materials.

For problems related to marketing, the local Development Planning Agency (Bappeda) is searching for potential markets outside Java.

The roofing tile industry in Kebumen began during colonial times, following the discovery of clay with a high kaolinite content in the region in 1910 by two Dutch officers, Van der Sook and Vlams, who then used it as the raw material for producing roofing tiles and ceramic items.

They established the first roofing tile business in Kebumen in the village of Pejagoan, and employed locals as workers.

The first roofing tile produced was what is locally known as genteng kodok, quite thick tiles, which were sold in Batavia (as Jakarta was known as that time). The Dutch Administration later used these types of tiles for all the roofs of train stations built in Java.

In 1913, the first roofing tile factory belonging to an indigenous businessman was established in Soka subdistrict and named AB Sokka. After 10 years, dozens of industrial centers producing similar roofing tiles had emerged in the region.

"At that time, producers used only manual equipment, not molding machines like they do now present," said Basuki of Kebumen Cooperatives and Industrial Office.

Since that time, many more businesspeople got involved until the number of producers ran into the thousands at its peak in the 1980s, when the government eased access to banks.

It was during that time that Sokka roofing tiles, as the products were known, became a booming industry in the region, both in volume and number of producers. It was also during that time that modern, high-capacity production machinery began to be employed in the region.

Consequently, the need for more raw materials rose sharply. Rice fields became a favored source of raw materials for the production of roofing tiles.

At least 4,000 producers were operating in the region. They could be found in the subdistricts of Pejagoan, Sruweng, Klirong, Adimulyo and Petanahan.

Some successful producers including Agus Subekti, Nurhadiyanto and Iman Sukardi were established during that period.

According to data from the regency's Cooperatives and Industry Office, currently over 3,800 roofing tile business units of all sizes exist in the regency.

They produce over 600 million tiles with a value of more than Rp 270 billion and generate a pretax income of over Rp 90 billion per year.

Such a booming business should be a potential source of income for the regency. However, Basuki of the Kebumen Cooperative and Industrial Office said it was not, because of the fact that only about 25 percent of the existing roofing tile businesses were formal business institutions.

The remainder are just informal, cottage industries, which makes it is difficult for the local government to generate tax from them.

"The business also fluctuates greatly. A previously large, tax-paying business unit, for example, can go bankrupt in just a few months, making it difficult for the government to calculate the tax contribution of the business as a whole," Basuki said.

From the manpower point of view, the business has absorbed over 48,000 workers, most of whom are women, and has supported almost 1.5 million people in the region if each worker is assumed to support, on average, three other people in their family.

Further examination, however, reveals that the figure is not that great. That is because the wages paid to the workers are quite low, at only Rp 6,000 to Rp 7,000 per day per worker (approximately Rp 160,000 (US$18) per month).

In other words, the business has yet to provide genuine economic security to local people and only the entrepreneurs/owners enjoy a real benefit from the industry.

"It's not surprising that the younger generation is reluctant to work in the sector. They prefer to go to big cities like Jakarta to look for work, or even abroad as migrant workers," Mariam, 31, a labor activist said.