RI goods higher quality than foreigners': Minister

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Thousands of businesspeople in the textile and food industries nationwide are expected to participate in the Indonesian Product Exhibition (PPI) 2004 in May and September in Jakarta and five other cities.

Minister of Industry and Trade Rini Soewandi said on Monday that the exhibition was aimed at raising public awareness about the high quality of Indonesian products, as well as encouraging people to use local products.

"Our products can now compete with foreign products. As a matter of fact, many of our products have even higher quality than the foreign products. We hope the exhibition can boost commitment to using local products," Rini confidently asserted.

She argued the fact that Indonesia could sell US$50 billion worth of non-oil and gas products abroad last year showed that the quality of Indonesian products had been internationally recognized.

Rini also said that the PPI was intended to give regional businesspeople the opportunity to promote their products because many of them complained about the lack of opportunities to display their products at the national level.

The PPI will be open to the public from May 26 to 28 at the Jakarta Convention Center in Central Jakarta, while Makassar, Palembang, Surabaya, Mataram and Samarinda, will host a similar exhibition in September.

The exhibitions will concentrate on textiles and textile products as well as food products.

All 32 provinces will be represented in the Jakarta exhibition, while hundreds of businesspeople from 15 associations will also take part. The committee will provide around three thousand booths for them.

The programs in the exhibition will include textiles and textile product displays, fashion shows, a design contest, traditional food displays, a cooking contest and seminars on textile and food.

The Director General of Domestic Trade Affairs, Erni Rifana, said that the government also hoped that the exhibition could bring local buyers straight to the producers.

The PPI will be participated in by small, medium and large scale producers. Special, lower booth fees are provided for the smaller scale businesses in order to promote their growth.

"We have subsidized small and middle scale participants as well as the participants from the regions by giving them much lower prices on the booths," said Erni.