Ministry to speed up textile quota sharing

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)