Kemenperin-BPIPI Sidoarjo Campaign Indonesia Stepping, Boosting Feet IKM Capabilities

The Directorate General of Small, Medium, and Multifarious Industries (IKMA) of the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) together with the Sidoarjo Indonesian Footwear Industry Empowerment Center (BPIPI) proactively echoed the #Indonesiastep campaign to boost the creativity of the younger generation of footwear industry players, especially at the level of small and medium industries (IKM).

The Director General of IKMA at the Ministry of Industry, Reni Yanita, said that the footwear industry has a close relationship with young people as one of the main market segments in this industry.

"We hope that the Indonesia Footwear Creative Competition, which is a national scale competition held by BPIPI, will be able to boost the development of the footwear industry in Indonesia," said Reni in a written statement received by VOI, Monday, August 21.

Reni said, the Indonesia Footwear Creative Competition (IFC) is a competition for photography, videography, and design whose works can be utilized by the footwear industry. In total there are 482 works that enter through the ifcc.bpipi.id website. Of the hundreds of works, 28 were nominated to the top three finalists from each category.

Meanwhile, the Head of BPIPI Syukur, Idayati, said that the selected champions' works would be collaborated with the footwear industry, such as facilitating the creation of visual photos & videos from selected outsole designs to promote local footwear products.

"The results expected from this activity are the formation of collaboration doors, exchange ideas, and provide an understanding of the current shift and opportunities of the footwear industry," he said.

The Ministry of Industry noted that the development of footwear industry players in Indonesia, especially those on a scale of IKM, has the potential to increase from year to year, because, so far, Indonesia is known as one of the largest footwear producers in the world.

Based on data from the World Footwear Book 2023, Indonesia is the third largest footwear exporter in the world after China and Vietnam throughout 2022. The number of exports of footwear products in Indonesia reached 535 million pairs or 3.5 percent of the total footwear products exported worldwide.

From the 2023 World Footwear Book report, Indonesia is also listed as the fifth-largest Footwear product consumer in the world with a total consumption of 702 million pairs of shoes or 3.2 percent of the world's total footwear product consumption.

"This condition must be maximized properly by the domestic footwear industry," said Director of Industry Aneka and IKM Kimia, Sandang, and Ni Nyoman Ambareny.

Efforts to increase the use of domestic market potential, he said, must be taken seriously. This is because the Ministry of Industry's Pusdatin report shows that the investment value of PMDN in the skin industry, leather goods, and footwear in the first quarter of 2023 reached Rp344.467 million and PMA investment reached 190 million US dollars.

"This increases our optimism for the growth of the domestic footwear industry," said Ambareny.

Not only that, he continued, the footwear industry is also noted to have made a major contribution to the national economy. The Ministry of Industry's data shows that the contribution of the skin, leather and footwear industry, which covers the footwear industry to GDP 2022, reached IDR 30.80 trillion or grew by 9.36 percent in 2021.

Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2023, the sector's GDP contribution reached IDR 7.57 trillion or had contributed 1.42 percent to non-oil and gas GDP. The export performance of the sector in the first semester of 2023 reached 3.81 billion US dollars.

The export value of sports shoe commodities occupies the top eight commodities of the export value of the non-oil and gas processing industry.

But on the other hand, Ambareny does not deny that the footwear industry is currently facing various challenges, such as declining demand from the Indonesian (United States and Europe) export market and competition with low-price products.

"Therefore, the Directorate General of IKMA through BPIPI consistently encourages the development of these footwear IKM players through programs to increase HR capacity, technical guidance on production, certification, facilitation and restructuring of machines, business incubators, as well as facilitation of exhibition participation at home and abroad," he added.