Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said that until now the industry confidence index (IKI) for the textile and textile products (TPT) industry is still corrected below 50 points. He explained that this was due to the economic slowdown which had corrected demand from the export market.
However, according to him, currently the TPT industry is slowly starting to increase and it is hoped that it will rebound in the second quarter of 2023. "We hope that in the not too distant future, it will return to position 50, because we see that the weakening world economy will definitely affect the industry, including TPT," said Minister after the meeting with Commission VII DPR RI, Tuesday (14/2/2023).
He sees that currently the world economy is starting to improve so that it becomes a positive sentiment in the growth of the domestic industry. "The world economy is starting to improve, hopefully in our calculations this will be the second quarter of 2023, so that markets will meet again later," he said.
As is known, the impact of weakening export demand for the TPT industry this year has resulted in quite a high impact of layoffs. Even last year, the Association of Textile Product Entrepreneurs of West Java Province (PPTPJB) noted that there were 64 thousand employees from 124 companies, the majority of which were the textile industry in West Java, which were affected by the global economic slowdown. "So if he has long contractions, it's only natural that there will be layoffs and so on, even though we have asked the company not to do that," said the Minister of Industry.
According to him, the footwear industry is experiencing the same thing. Currently, demand for the industry has started to recover along with improving economic conditions.
"Footwear even now has a better rebound, in the near future when it has expanded, they will again absorb it," said the Minister of Industry. "We with various policies also include strengthening the global economy, there will be expansion, which will definitely create jobs," he concluded.
