Textile Manufacturers Need New Machines

Surabaya, East Java, Oct 24 (Antara) - Of the 1.5 thousand textile businesses (TPT) in Indonesia, 500 are in need of new machines to improve their competitiveness in both domestic and foreign markets, a minister has said. "Those textile manufacturers need revitalization efforts because their machines are more than 25 years old, rendering them obsolete," Industry Minister MS Hidayat remarked during a national coordination meeting of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) to address transportation and logistics issues here on Thursday. According to him, Indonesia`s textile industry has relied on imported machines thus far, but unfortunately, most of these machines are from China, Indonesia`s main rival for TPT in global and domestic markets. The minister noted that TPT is one of Indonesia`s major contributors to non-oil and gas exports, with a net export value of some five billion dollars. Hidayat said that in the future, the government will make every effort to establish a manufacturing industry that creates machines to serve footwear and textile factories in Indonesia. "We will provide a tax holiday in the form of income tax exemption for 10 years and will ease the import duties of goods for investment in the machine-manufacturing industry, especially for footwear and textile products," he added.