Thursday, March 10, 2011

RI LAUNCHES INDONESIAN SHOE DAY TO BOOST DOMESTIC FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY by Fardah

      Jakarta, March 10, 2011 (ANTARA) - With the launching of Indonesia`s Shoe Day, more people can be expected to wear Batik clothes and Indonesian-made shoes every Friday as of March 11.
      National Shoe Day was officially kicked off by Trade Minister Marie Elka Pangestu in Jakarta, Wednesday (March 9), to encourage the Indonesian people to wear locally made shoes every Friday at least.
      To give an example to the Indonesian public, Minister Pangestu on the occasion was wearing brown snake-leather shoes, while famed football player Bambang Pamungkas was wearing black leather shoes - all made in Indonesia. Pamungkas has been involved in the campaign as he is considered an icon of quality symbol for victory.
      "Hopefully, this movement can be followed by other ministries and institutions, and will roll like a snow ball," the minister said, adding that she had told around 3,000 employees of the trade ministry to wear domestic shoes every Friday.
      To promote the locally-made shoe campaign, the trade ministry was also holding a domestic-made shoes exhibition from March 9 to 15, 2011, and plans to open at least 15 outlets to promote the Indonesian-made shoes in Greater Jakarta.
      Indonesian shoes are quite competitive, according to Pangestu, who cited local-made footwear products such as Yongki Komaladi, Gino Mariani, Sledger, Andre Valentino, Andre Convert, Studio Nine, Elle Paris, Absolut, Kenny, Piero, Tomkins and Specs, as examples.
     Urging domestic shoes producers to improve their products` quality, design and promotion, Deputy Trade Minister Mahendra Siregar explained that the Indonesia-made Shoes Day was launched to follow the step of the National Batik Day declared few years ago, in order to win the public heart for domestic products.

The launching of National Shoe Day was hailed by Chairman of the Indonesian Footwear Association (Aprisindo) Eddy Widjanarko. He appreciated the government for taking the initiative to launch Indonesia`s Shoe Day.


Domestically made shoes currently take around 70 percent of the shoe market for the middle and up level markets, while 50 percent of the lower and middle level markets are dominated by imports especially from China.


"We should be able to dominate the lower and middle markets," Eddy Widjanarko said, while calling on the Indonesian people to love domestic-made shoes in order to increase the production.


According to Widjanarko, having good quality and design, Indonesian shoes have been exported to 148 countries.


"The exports have been tremendous. In 2009, it reached 1.7 billion US dollars, and in 2010 up to November 2.4 billion US dollar," he said.


He has set a target of an increase of US$1 billion a year and hoped the government would give its support to achieve it.


Indonesia is the third largest sport shoe exporters after China and Vietnam.


?For leather shoes we are number four after China, Vietnam and India," he said, adding that about 17 new shoe producers planned to invest Indonesia.


The country?s shoe production capacity is currently 1.3 billion pairs annually. It exported about 300 million pairs of shoes last year, and is expected to jump to about 400 million pairs this year.


The government expects footwear exports to increase to US$3.2 billion in 2011, or up about 52 percent from last year?s.


Minister Mari E Pangestu explained that the increase was significant as investment coming in over the past two years was quite high.


?Therefore exports are expected to increase to US$3.2 billion this year and US$5 billion in the next two years," she said.


The Indonesian footwear industry is centered in several cities on Java Island such as Tangerang (Banten Province), Cibaduyut, Bandung, Bekasi, Kerawang and Sukabumi (West Java Province), and Jombang as well as Mojokerto (East java). The local footwear companies currently employee around 454,359 people.


The government has pledged to encourage and facilitate shoe industrialists to improve the quality, design and promotion of their products so that the market share of the country`s shoes abroad would be bigger.


"Quality must be maintained. We must compete by producing shoes of good quality and affordable price," she said adding the country`s main rivals now are China and Vietnam.


Besides encouraging exports, the government is also determined to expand the domestic market share of the Indonesian shoe products. Therefore, the ministry has declared Friday as the Indonesian Shoe Day.


Minister Pangestu recalled that the campaign of wearing local-made shoes had actually been started by the then vice president Jusuf Kalla in 2008.


She hoped that the local shoe campaign could follow the success of Batik Day campaign, as Batik clothes are now worn by old as well as young people throughout Indonesia, especially every Friday.


(t. F001/A/HAJM/12:20/A/O001)

(T.F001/A/F001/A/O001) 10-03-2011 12:38:08

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