Mayertex to boost production

JAKARTA (JP): PT Mayer Textile Industry Indonesia, a textile producer listed on the Jakarta and Surabaya stock exchanges, will procure new machines and seek technical cooperation with foreign companies to improve its production capacity and product quality.

Mayertex's chief commissioner, Irwan Suria, told reporters after its annual shareholders meeting here yesterday that the capacity improvement is necessary to support its plan to expand marketing in China.

"We have opened a new distribution line in China," Irwan said, adding that the company is interested in China because it has an open market with a very huge demand, while its traditional markets in the European countries and the United States are limited by quota systems.

He said declines in demand on the world market affected the profitability of the company, which is export oriented. The company's after tax profit dropped to Rp 162.21 million (US$75,028.98) last year from Rp 1.69 billion in 1992.

Its net revenue dropped to Rp 47.23 billion from Rp 70.78 billion, while its total assets increased to Rp 64.91 billion from Rp 53.72 billion.

Irwan said the company's revenue from garment exports last year dropped to Rp 26.69 billion from Rp 38.74 billion in 1992, and revenue from textile exports to Rp 14.61 billion from Rp 24.94 billion.

Chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association (API), Handoko Tjokrosaputro, said recently that Indonesia's exports of textiles and textile products started falling in the fourth quarter of last year and will likely continue declining in the coming months due to decreased competitiveness of its products and weaker demand in industrial countries.

Data from the Ministry of Trade show that Indonesia's exports of fabrics, yarns and other textile materials increased by 20 percent in volume to 441,240 tons last year from 367,560 tons in 1992, but the 22.5 percent decline in prices caused the export value to decrease by seven percent to US$2.63 billion from $2.83 billion.

Exports of garments rose 17.8 percent to 227,690 tons from 193,210 tons but the 6.1 percent decline in prices caused their value to increase only by 10.6 percent to $3.5 billion from $3.16 billion. (02)