HANDICRAFT DEVELOPMENT HAMPERED BY DESIGN PROBLEMS: DIRECTOR GENERAL

Jakarta, May 31 (ANTARA) - Indonesia is facing a design problem in the development of its handicraft industries, Small and Medium-Scale Industry Director General Fuazi Aziz said here on Sunday.

He said that the quality and volume of Indonesia's handicraft production were adequate for domestic consumption but the designs of the products were still lagging far behind those overseas.

The director general said that in order to develop the country's handicraft industry, matters relating to design would become one of the priorities that would be developed in the future.
Aziz said that one of the ways on how to do that was to integrate craftsmen and designers in a handicraft industry, including in garment industry.

"I am confident that if the craftsmen and designers cooperate, our products would excel and become progressive," he said.

In the meantime, the director general said on Saturday that Indonesia had set the annual growth of its creative industries at 10 percent.

"In the 2002-2006 period, the creative industry is the seventh biggest contributor to the gross domestic products of the 10 business sectors. It contributed some Rp104,638 trillion or 6.28 percent," the director general said here on Saturday.

In order to develop the creative industries, the government, in this case the ministry of industry, believed that various actors had to collaborate, among others intellectual architects, business makers and government officials.

A collaboration should be established by a national body which involved the three actors. Fauzi Aziz expressed optimism that in that way the target of creative industry development would be achieved.

After all, the growth of creative industries in the past few years was encouraging, he said.

He said that it seemed Indonesia had a strength in that field, which was also supported by a favorable cultural environment which enabled the creative economy to support economic growth in Indonesia.

"We are now able to develop a handicraft-based creative economy," he said.

At present, he said that handicraft industries in Indonesia involved almost 700,000 craftsmen, employing 1.5-2 million workers.***2***