Traders demand right to import second-hand clothes

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

An official at the Indonesian Secondhand Clothes Traders Association (APPBI) estimated on Thursday that some 10,000 large bales of secondhand garments were smuggled each week from neighboring Southeast Asian countries into Tanjung Balai seaport in North Sumatra province.

Aswan Jaya, the secretary-general of the association, said that the smuggled clothes were freely traded throughout North Sumatra province, causing huge losses to local clothes producers. They were on sale in Medan city, Simalungun regency, Pematang Siantar regency, Asahan regency and the Tanjung Balai area, as well as other parts of Sumatra.

The secondhand garments, normally of better quality than Indonesian produced clothes, came from various Southeast Asia countries, including Malaysia and Singapore, and even from South Korea and the United States. Besides being distributed and traded throughout North Sumatra province, the clothes were also traded in Riau province and South Sulawesi.

According to Aswan, each trader paid between Rp 1 million and Rp 4 million per bale of secondhand garments, depending on the quality of the items. Each bale contained some 400 used shirts and 150 pairs of pants.

People were interested in buying the secondhand garments as they were very cheap. One pair of pants was going for between Rp 10,000 and Rp 20,000, while a shirt was to be had for between Rp 5,000 and Rp 10,000. These prices were much lower than those of new items, which were normally sold for between Rp 30,000 and Rp 300,000 each.

He said that the trading of secondhand garments slowed down between 1990 and 1993, as there were rumors that they were somehow infected with the AIDS virus, and later the SARS virus.

"But, as there was no evidence that you could be infected by wearing secondhand garments, people have recently started to buy them again," explained Aswan.

Aswan said that the smuggling of secondhand garments reached alarming proportions after the central government slapped a ban on the import of the secondhand garments in September last year. The ban was issued to protect the local textile and clothing industry from a flood of secondhand clothes entering Indonesia from other countries.

As the traders could no longer legally import the secondhand garments from other countries, they had resorted to smuggling. They were not frightened of sanctions imposed by the government as law enforcement was still weak. It was, in fact, this lack of law enforcement that had allowed smuggling to reach such alarming proportions, said Aswan.

Some secondhand garment traders complain that in many cases government officials turn a blind eye to the smuggling, although they admit that in some cases the smugglers have had their merchandise seized and been prosecuted.

Aswan suggested that the government revoke the ban so as to put an end to the widespread flouting of the law in the province.

"The ban has to be lifted so that the trading of secondhand garments can be carried out legally here," he said, adding that the ban had badly affected some 2.5 million secondhand garment traders in Indonesia.

The government, however, has rejected charges that it is not serious about combating the smuggling of secondhand clothes. the Belawan Customs and Excise Office in North Sumatra, for example, destroyed tens of thousands of smuggled secondhand garments, as well as pirated VCDs, that were found in seven containers. The containers were impounded by Customs last year.