Chairman of the Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producers Association (APSyFI) Redma Gita Wirawasta suspects that the low orders for campaign attributes ahead of the 2024 election are caused by the increase in imported goods. He suspects that many campaign attributes were smuggled into the country for election purposes.
"Why import? Because it is considered cheaper. But actually it is not cheaper if it uses legal routes," said Redma when contacted, Monday, (30/10/2023).
Redma gave the example that to legally import one finished t-shirt at a price of IDR 30 thousand, the importer also has to pay import duty of around IDR 30 thousand. Meanwhile, the price of a local producer's t-shirt is estimated at only IDR 35 thousand. With prices that are too high, Redma believes that imported campaign t-shirts will not be in demand if they are imported legally.
Redma admitted that he had received information about imported t-shirts that had entered Indonesia. He said one of his members had witnessed a warehouse being used to store the t-shirts. "Yesterday we confirmed it with friends downstream," he said.
The existence of these t-shirts is what he suspects has caused orders to local producers to be quiet this year. He said that domestic producers currently have not experienced the slightest increase in sales of their textile products. In fact, a series of elections are already underway and the campaign period will take place on November 28 2023.
According to him, in the 2019 elections local producers experienced an increase in textile sales of 25% on a quarterly basis compared to no elections. This figure represents additional sales of 100 thousand tons of textile products on a quarterly basis, from the normal figure of 450 thousand tons. "Now there is no increase in sales whatsoever," he said.