Chairman of Indonesian Textile Association (API) Ade Sudrajat said that imports of raw materials and textile industry support increased 15 percent in the first quarter of 2017. According to him, the increase in imports was due to an increase in demand from export markets.
“In the first quarter of this year, exports minus imports are still surplus 1.29 billion US dollars,” said Ade, when contacted by Republika.co.id, Tuesday (18/4).
However, he admitted to not seeing a big demand fluctuation from the domestic market ahead of the coming of Ramadan. Demand is more likely to come from abroad.
According to Ade, the increasing demand from overseas market is due to the positive effect of increasing the competitiveness of Indonesian textile products. This is because of a number of factors from within the country that managed to spur export growth. Ade said these factors include decreasing dloading time in ports, increasing number of garment operators from vocational education, to incentives given by the Ministry of Finance. “This makes the manufacture and delivery time of finished goods shorter,” said Ade.
According to him, so far Indonesia’s textile products are less competitive than competing state-owned products namely India, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Ade said, it is because geographically, the position of Indonesia farthest to the world’s largest textile export destination countries, namely America and Europe.
Previously, the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) released the value of Indonesian exports reached 14.59 billion US dollars, equivalent to Rp 190 trillion in March 2017. This number increased 15.68 percent compared to February 2017 exports, up 23.55 percent compared to March 2016 While Indonesia’s imports in March 2016 reached 13.36 billion US dollars, up 17.65 percent compared to last February’s 11.35 billion US dollars.
Source: Republika
