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“In Need of Intensive
Care”
(Tempo May 22, 2006)
“Countries need to support sectors that
can tap local skill sets. The textile sector
has shown that it can take lower strata semi-educated
individuals with basic education and enhance ‘finger
skills’ and ‘well developed hand-eye
coordination’ through training and productivity
efforts. The workers have shown to be fast learners
and buyers often place more complicated orders
with Indonesian producers while routing basic
orders to South Asian nations. With over 70 percent
of textile sector workers being women, the sector
is also crucial to social stability. If Indonesia
is to fully recover from the economic crisis
it must do so by empowering women to a greater
extent and giving them opportunities to become
more financially independent, vocationally qualified
and aware of their rights.
n summary this ‘core’ sector
[textiles] is now like a tired patient, afflicted
with multiple problems and in need of urgent
attention. Ad hoc ‘doses’ like holding
off tariff power hikes or canceling port handling
cost increases are welcome but not enough. There
needs to be a comprehensive policy package – set
up a separate textiles ministry (as has been
the case in India since post-independence), negotiate
preferential market access, arrange for loans
from development agencies for modernization and
expansion, incentivize local bank lending, improve
infrastructure, reform labor laws after educating
worker representatives on the need for reasonable
change, make repatriation of export proceeds
compulsory, manage rupiah and interest rate volatilities,
create textile training institutes to enhance
productivity and skill sets, support the migration
of units to Central Java and control dumping/smuggling
of cheap imports.
The patient is gasping. Intensive care needs
to be provided quickly and in a sustained manner
over the next five years. The wider health of
the economy depends on it.”
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