PPKM Declines, Minister Of Industry Agus Gumiwang Believes Textile And Textile Product (TPT) Industry Will Grow

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Industry (Menperin) Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita is optimistic that the Textile and Textile Product (TPT) industry can continue to rise after the PPKM easing is implemented in line with the increasingly controlled cases of COVID-19 in the country.

According to him, even though it is an industry that has been hit hard, he is confident that the machine and equipment restructuring program will be able to increase efficiency and productivity in the textile sector.

“Especially in August, the contraction in the manufacturing sector as a result of the implementation of PPKM has subsided, this can be seen in the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) of Indonesian manufacturing which was at 43.7 in August. An increase from 40.1 from last July," he said in an official statement as quoted on Thursday, September 2.

The Minister of Industry added, in order to encourage the PTP sector to be faster, his party initiated a restructuring program for machinery/equipment in the fabric refinement and printing industry.

"We launched this program as one of the incentives for the textile industry sector to improve performance during the pandemic, as well as as part of the implementation of the Making Indonesia 4.0 roadmap," he said.

For information, the textile sector is one of the industrial groups categorized as strategic and national priority industries in accordance with the National Industrial Development Master Plan (RIPIN). This industry is said to be a foreign exchange earner with an export value of US$10.55 billion in 2020 and a workforce of 3.43 million people.

In the second quarter of 2021, the performance of the textile sector still experienced a contraction of minus 4.54 percent on an annual basis (year-on-year/yoy), although there was a slight improvement of 0.48 percent compared to the previous quarter. However, exports of this sector in January-June 2021 increased 13 percent to 5.87 billion US dollars.