Textile producers urged to tap China's market

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian producers and exporters of textiles and clothes should tap the rapidly growing market in China, a German business analyst said yesterday.

"The textile market in China has been growing rapidly. For the next six years we expect an average growth of 18.8 percent per year," Kurt Mueller, the managing director of Messe Frankfurt, a German exhibition-organizing company told a press conference here.

The press conference was organized by Ekonid (Indonesia- Germany Economic Cooperation) in conjunction with a plan by Messe Frankfurt to hold the China International Trade Fair for Apparel Fabrics, Hometextiles and Accessories in Shanghai, China, in October.

Mueller pointed out that China will see its imports of textiles and textile products increase toward the end of the century as it is unable to meet local needs with domestically- produced goods.

Mueller said that even though China is the world's largest producer of cotton, it relies largely on imported polyester and other synthetic fibers.

"The highest growth will take place in the demand for home and household textiles, which include products like bed sheets, window curtains and carpets," he noted.

Meanwhile China will build or renovate 2,200 hotels, 1.64 million shops, warehouses and public buildings and around three million apartments, he added.

A study by the China Textiles Economic Research Center confirms that the market for garments in the country will grow by 18.8 percent per year up to the year 2000 with particular emphasis on articles of clothing aimed at the upper classes.

According to Chen Dapeng, deputy director of China Council of Textile Industries (CCPIT), his country's textile and textile- product imports increased by an average of about 20 percent a year during the last few years.

Imports

"Last year our imports of textiles and textile products stood at about US$10 billion," he told The Jakarta Post.

But Novo Lendo, the executive secretary of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Textile Association, told reporters after the press conference that Indonesian exporters are reluctant to expand their market in China, which has a population of almost 1.5 billion, or one quarter of the world's people.

He cited non-tariff barriers as the main reason.

These include the requirement that Indonesian exporters use Chinese characters in all their products.

"Another barrier is that we have to set up something like a joint venture with a state-owned institution if we want to sell directly in that country. But setting up such a joint venture is a very time-consuming process," he noted.

Chen, however, denied the existence of such barriers. "There are no such barriers in my country. The procedures there are actually simple and foreign exporters can benefit from the market," he told the Post.

According to Novo, due to the non tariff barriers, Indonesian producers are reluctant to participate in the textiles trade fair in Shanghai in October.

"There is not yet a single company expressing interest in taking part in the textile trade fair," he said.

Indonesia's exports of textiles and textile products to China increased from US$38 million in 1993 to $58 million in 1994, according to Novo.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Indonesia's total exports of textiles and textile products increased from $5.6 billion in 1994 to $6.2 billion in 1995. (13)