Textile, garment firms reduce work hours

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Textile and garment companies operating in Bandung and Majalaya, West Java, have cut their employees' work hours over the past two weeks due to a drop in orders from the United States and European countries, an executive said.

"Many companies have cut workdays to five days a week from six and shifts to one shift from two and even three shifts a day," said Madi Rukasah, processing manager of PT Wistex, a fabric dyeing and printing company in Majalaya.

Wistex serves 34 small and medium textile and garment companies, mostly in Majalaya.

Madi said orders for dyeing and printing from the 34 companies had dwindled from 600,000 meters per month to 500,000 meters per month.

Consequently, production has dropped by between 10 percent and 15 percent.

Nevertheless, Madi said his company would not lay off workers but hoped that orders would pick up in the future.

Satya Natapura, another textile businessman in Majalaya, concurred and said that past experience showed that orders did come during a crisis.

"Just like in 1998, we were flooded with orders because many big textile and garment companies went bankrupt. We never know God's plans," Satya said.

Satya said that some new orders had come in from buyers in Taiwan and Hong Kong, although their value was small.

Meanwhile, West Java's Indonesian Textile Association (API) chairman Adi Yunus said orders had dropped but were still coming in, especially from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

"Buyers in these countries are mostly brokers. They resell the products to the United States or European countries. Consequently, we get less foreign exchange. But that's OK, at least we can keep our businesses operating," he said.

He noted that buyers from Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong paid less than buyers from Europe or America, because they supplied local companies with the fabric.

"For instance, when we get orders from the U.S., we can get $40 for a dozen garments. But for buyers from Taiwan, we only get $25 because they supply us with the fabric," he said.

Adi noted that buyers from Europe and the U.S. were still interested in buying garments from Indonesia, but due to security concerns they had shifted their purchases to other countries, or to brokers in neighboring countries.

"The real impacts from the anti-American demonstrations is the decrease in our foreign exchange income from exports," he said.

Once anti-American sentiment dyes down, it is expected that European and U.S. buyers will return, Adi said.