Traders demand right to import second-hand clothes

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.