Majalaya textile factories back in business

By Yuli Tri Suwarni

MAJALAYA, West Java (JP): The textile home industry was once flourishing in this town. Then came a nightmare in the form of the economic crisis.

It was a disaster. In order to meet their families' daily needs, many in the business sold their machines at very low prices.

Today, however, the textile home industry in Majalaya, one of the major textile producing centers in the country, is back in business.

"So do not expect to see piles of unused weaving machines or people sitting around unemployed in their houses," local resident Dede Suwenda said.

"Labor is scarce here," Dede added.

The area, known as the center of the textile home industries, produces a variety of items from sheets to shoe laces.

A textile factory owner, Isa, 60, said that while many people were having problems earning enough money to buy food, factory owners here were having problems meeting orders.

Hundreds of small and medium-sized textile factories in the area, located about 20 kilometers south of the province's capital of Bandung, actually benefited from the economic crisis.

Before the crisis hit the country in 1997, the local home industry could not compete with big companies which mass produced and sold their products at a much lower price.

It was also not easy competing with the big players as the home industry used old weaving machines which were mostly manufactured between 1950 and 1960.

At Majalaya the women folk used to weave cloth using simple tools, while the men sold them walking from one village to another.

"Before the monetary (crisis), I sold my products, made with six fabric rope machines, in a pedicab," said local textile factory owner Ateng Taufiq, 55.

"Now I own three Kijang (minivans)," he added.

A dyeing factory owner, Satya Natapura, said a couple of years ago, he used to be worried about the fate of his 300 employees.

Back then, his factory was almost idle since most of the local textile businesses which were his clients had closed down.

Today, his factory receives four times as many orders.

The success of the textile home industry in Majalaya is largely due to foreign traders who come directly to the area, which is known as the place where the country's textile tycoon The Nin King once learnt how to make a sheet of cloth, to buy the products.

Due to the rupiah's devaluation, it has become much cheaper to buy fabric locally even after factory owners raised the price of their products.

Ateng who produces fabric ropes said after the economic crisis, he had to raise the price of the ropes from Rp 3,000 per kilogram to Rp 15,000. It is still much cheaper to buy them locally as the international market sells them at US$2 per kg.

The price of white cloth may be four times higher today, but they are still four times cheaper than those manufactured overseas.

The foreigners, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, usually buy large quantities of textile when they visit Majalaya.

"Every time they come here, they bring along 40-feet containers," Satya, who is also an executive of the Association of Majalaya Textile Industry Owners, said.

"They then fill the containers with all kinds of fabrics and clothing as if they were shopping in a convenient store," Satya added.

The foreigners had come to hear of the area from textile traders at the Tanah Abang market, Central Jakarta, where they initially bought textiles from.

The market, which is the largest textile trading center in the capital, is one of the main markets for factories in Majalaya to sell their products to, besides the Pasar Baru market in Bandung, West Java.

Many foreign traders now choose to buy textiles and clothing directly from their producers.

The traditional textile factory owners admit they had also felt the impact of the economic crisis when it first struck in 1997 but they had fought to keep their businesses afloat.

According to factory owner Isa, since the price of polyester thread, which is used to make cloth sheets, has soared, many factory owners go to Cipagalo, 15 km north of Majalaya, to buy T- shirt collars.

"We buy a lot of them, pull out the thread, and use them as a substitute for polyester thread in making cloth sheets," Isa said.

Isa also said the factory owners now realize that they can increase their production by using more machines.

Ateng said that since he was not able to afford factory-made machines, he had gone to a blacksmith instead.

"The price of Korean-made machines doubled to $2,000 per unit in 1998. Blacksmiths can make them for me for only Rp 1.5 million each," Ateng said.

Many textile factory owners made the mistake of closing down their businesses shortly after the economic crisis began.

Thirty-year-old Dede Suwega, who inherited from his parents the textile business run by his family for four generations, regrets his decision to sell his textile manufacturing equipment.

"Then, the industry was going through a hard time since there were not enough buyers and raw material was very expensive," Dede said.

"According to the newspapers, economic observers said the crisis would go on for a long time, and I believed them because even in mid-1998, the condition had not changed."

Dede said he then took all 50 of his weaving machines to a junkyard and sold them for Rp 400,000 each.

"But God has ruled differently. The textile products in our area began to sell very well. My friends who stayed in the business have become rich," Dede said.

Like Ateng who collects the remnants of cloth from his neighbors and turns it into fabric ropes, there are also many local residents who make pillow covers, sarong, and shoe laces from them.

Even paper cylinders to roll thread on are recycled to make big paper blocks to roll cloth sheets on.

However, the factory owners complained about the lack of the government support for small and medium-sized businesses in the area.

"We are not demanding credit facilities, we just need guidance," Satya said.

"There are many people in the business here who do not know anything about management, technical matters or market expansion."

"It's hard if we have to only rely on the market in Java as it is already very crowded," Satya said.