Textile exports to U.S. rose in January
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesian textile exports to the world's largest market, the United States, were on the rise over the past two months, raising optimism about the outlook of the industry that has cut tens of thousands of jobs over the past few years.
Quoting data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Baahri La Inggi, a textile industry analyst, said Indonesian textile exports to the U.S. rose by around 8.6 percent to US$223.76 in January this year, compared to the same month of last year.
For February, he expected that exports to the U.S. could rise by at least 6 percent.
"We have yet to find out the figures of our exports in February. But I have confidence that our exports booked an at-least-6-percent increase compared to the same period a year ago," he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Baahri, who is also an advisor to the Indonesian Textile Association (API) for Greater Jakarta, argued that the increase was caused by buyers' experiences over the years that Indonesian textile products were better quality than products from China and Vietnam.
"Although Indonesian textiles are more expensive than products from China, buyers from the U.S. and France have come to realize that we have higher quality products than both of our competitors," he said.
Despite a better performance in 2003, the nation's textile industry has experienced difficulties for years in competing with products from China and Vietnam, which have been flooding the global market, including Indonesia, over the past few years.
Several analysts have painted a bleaker outlook for this year, predicting more job losses in the industry, which was forced to cut about 50,000 jobs in 2002.
Indonesia's textile exports reached $7.034 billion in 2003, an increase from $6.88 billion in 2002. However, the 2003 figure was still lower than exports in 2001 and 2000 which stood at $7.67 billion and $8.20 billion respectively.
The U.S. market absorbs more than 28 percent of Indonesian textile exports while European Union countries, Canada, and Japan take 40 percent, 10 percent and 6 percent respectively. Indonesia now has 2.5 percent of the total world market share.
A textile exporter, A.T. Chuan, acknowledged that he managed to increase his exports in 2003, while he also experienced export growth in the first two months of the year.
"Hopefully, the trend will continue for the rest of the year," he said.
Sofyan Wanandi, the chairman of the Indonesian Employers Association (APINDO) said the current export trend belied the notion that the performance of Indonesia's textile industry was declining.
"Many of our products, especially the high quality ones, can compete with products from China and Vietnam," he said.
However, he admitted that several problems, such as outdated machineries, would remain major threats for the survival of the industry for at least three years to come.
"We need investment to replace these machines so badly. The problem is that the banking sector has misjudged the prospect of the industry and refuse to give credit to textile businessmen. As a matter of fact, they are bankable," said Sofyan.