Ministry to speed up textile quota sharing

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Industry and Trade said yesterday it would speed up the allocation of new export quotas for textile and textile products.

The ministry's export director, Sudar, said yesterday the early allocation of new quotas was aimed at grasping market opportunities from rival countries.

The ministry would monitor the supplies of certain products in competing countries and, when supply was running low, the ministry would allocate a quota for the category of goods for local exporters, he said.

This might lead international buyers to find products, which are running out in other countries, in Indonesia, he added.

"Even if certain quota categories were not usually allocated at this time, we would do so if our competitors' supply of this category was running out," he was quoted by Antara as saying.

Sudar said not all orders for textiles and textile products had been canceled by international buyers, but last month's riots had affected some orders.

Orders under contract have not been canceled, he said.

"Orders for which no contract had been signed were the ones that got canceled," he said.

Sudar said the country's exports of textile and textile products in the first four months of this year reached US$911.09 million, up 9.58 percent compared to the same period last year of $831.46 million.

The United States was the biggest importer of Indonesian textiles during the period, totaling at $503.32 million.

It was followed by the European Union with $388.55 million, Canada $18.82 million and Norway $390,930.

Export volumes in this year's first quarter reached 556.73 million square meters, a 27.1 percent rise year-on-year from 438.02 million square meters.

The European Union exported the largest volume of textile and textile products from the country, totaling 334.72 million square meters.

The United States followed with total exports of 216.3 million square meters, Canada 5.66 million square meters and Norway 38,920 square meters.

The number of categories of products exported to textile buyers amount to 108, including 81 categories imported by the United States, 14 categories by the European Union, 11 categories by Canada and two categories by Norway. (das)