Textile producers urged to tap China's market
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)