RI to get textile and textile product markets

RI to get textile and textile product markets

JAKARTA (JP): The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC),
which was recently approved in the multilateral Uruguay Round,
will give a wider access to Indonesia's textiles and textile
products on the world market.

An advisor to the Minister of Trade, Darry Salim, said in a
two-day seminar here yesterday that the agreement will confine
all kinds of bilateral relationships and gradually phase out the
Multi Fiber Arrangement (MFA). He added that it will provide
better market access for Indonesia's products due to the removal
of the quota systems in a number of industrial countries within
the next ten years.

Darry, who is a former director of foreign trade of the
Ministry of Trade, said "the recent failure of bilateral
agreement between Indonesia and the United States on textiles
will accelerate the removal of the U.S. quota on Indonesia's
textiles and textile products."

He said Indonesia will be the first country to be free of the
U.S. quota system and will not have to wait ten years.

Meanwhile, a deputy chairman of the Indonesian Textile
Association (API), Chamroel Djafri, said Indonesia will get new
markets in the Scandinavian countries after the removal of their
quota systems.

Chamroel said the new imposition of a quota system on Chinese
products by the United States has caused China to lose US$4
billion annually from textile exports. Indonesia, therefore, has
the chance to fill in the reduction of China's market share in
the United States.

He said China, the world's most populous country, is also the
target of Indonesia's textile exports.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Indonesia's
exports of textiles and textile products increased by 19.6
percent in volume to 692,357 tons last year from 578,726 tons in
1992 and by two percent in value to $6.18 billion from $6.06
billion. (02)