Indonesia: Textile makers ponder new markets as crisis hits

Several textile and garment makers in Bandung have been forced to cut prices and lay off workers as international orders dry up amid a world sweeping financial crisis.

Some are looking for new markets outside of Europe and the United States, which have posted reduced orders.

Ade R Sudrajat, secretary of the Bonded Zone Entrepreneurs Association, said some 25 percent of its members had slashed production due to reduced orders.

The association groups 100 exporting firms in Bandung, Bekasi, Cikarang, Merak and East Java.

An electronics producer in Bandung has closed down and others have laid off up to 300 workers.

Ade, who is also manager of export/import firm Dewhirst, said she advised companies to employ efficiency measures, but urged them not to lay off workers.

She said she managed to maintain her 5,300 workers at a factory producing Marks and Spencer shirts and trousers in Rancaekek, Bandung regency with efficiency measures such as employing more workers than needed for certain tasks.

Ade also said she was looking for new orders so she could avoid resorting to layoffs.

“Despite the crisis, we have still been able to ship 200,000 shirts and trousers every week to Europe and the US,” she said

Liem Jo Ping of CV Ceika Pauli Industry said he would wait to see what course the financial crisis would take before he resorted to radical measures, adding that the present crisis differed from the 1998 Asian financial crisis.

“Currently, buyers in Europe and the US are experiencing a shortage of orders while in 1998, exporting firms reaped huge profits because American and European buyers were not affected by the Asian crisis,” she said.

“I prefer to wait and look to new markets. I have been exporting woven clothes for 20 years and this is the first time I have found it difficult to get orders.”

Liem said her factory in Rancaekek produced 1,000 to 2,000 items of high-end woven clothes every week.