Q2 SHOE EXPORTS PREDICTED TO SEE POSITIVE GROWTH

Jakarta, June 18 (ANTARA) - Indonesia's shoe exports in the second quarter of 2009 are expected to experience a five percent positive growth in line with increasing demand for the commodity from Europe, a shoe producer said.

"The potential to increase shoe exports now existed so that we should have exported more shoes to Europe," Eddy Widjanarko, chairman of the Indonesian Shoe Producers Association (Aprisindo) said here on Thursday.

He said that the shoe markets in the European Union which absorbed 37 percent of Indonesia's shoe exports, were now increasing their demand for shoes from Indonesia so that the country's shoe exports in the second quarter were expected to increase.

"The market in Europe has been improving while in the United states has not yet," he said.

In the first quarter of 2009, Indonesia's shoe exports dropped four percent from 467.5 million dollars in the same period in 2008 to 448.8 million dollars.

Eddy has earlier predicted that the country's shoe export performance would improve next September, 2009. Besides the improvement in the world market, local shoes had also begun to take control over the domestic market, he said.

Aprisindo noted that since the issuance of the trade minister's decree No.56/2009 on the import on certain commodities, illegal imports of shoes decreased by 30 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

"Local shoe sales increased seven percent but it would likely more than that if a global financial crisis had not taken place," he added.

According to data available at the ministry of industry, Indonesia's shoe production reaches 1.2 billion pairs annually with an annual growth of 10 percent.

The national shoe consumption reaches 235 million pairs, 94 million pairs or about 40 percent of which are locally made shoes and 141 million others or 60 percent are imported.