Chinese-made textiles and clothing are on the rise in Indonesia.
The President of Indonesia gave a speech at an event, saying that Indonesians should “hate foreign products and love local products.” He believes that e-commerce platforms are accelerating the import of goods into Indonesia and using heavy discounts to dump products on the market, targeting the domestic garment industry.
Cross-border sales, where sellers headquartered overseas sell directly to Indonesian consumers, have increased dramatically and gradually grown into a local An important proportion of retail sales. Most of the textiles used to make clothing in Indonesia are imported. Unfortunately, the cost is more expensive than clothing that can be shipped far away in China.
Made in China sweeps Southeast Asia
Reporters are deeply involved in the offline purchase and sale of clothing Having been in the industry for many years, there are many business owners engaged in cross-border e-commerce clothing trade, where we have heard many stories.
In Dongzhang Village, Changjia Town, Qingyun County, Shandong Province, in the northern part of Shandong Province, more than a dozen left-behind rural women worked with him to sell small commodities to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, China. Administrative maps of Southeast Asia and Indonesia are hung in the factory offices here, and there is a globe on the desk.
Only in this remote village, because of cross-border e-commerce, the number of products manufactured in 2020 Profit income of more than 30 million yuan. The income of employees ranges from 1,500 yuan to 15,000 yuan. Cross-border e-commerce is not only a game for super Internet giants such as Alibaba, JD.com, and ByteDance, but a rural area can also play this game with ease.
The reporter learned that in 2020, 2.45 billion import and export lists were inspected and released through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform, a year-on-year increase of 63.3%.
The crushed Indonesian garment industry
Among the Indonesian population 87% are Muslims, and there are nearly 150 million women in Indonesia. Most of them end up wearing a headscarf at some point. Many Muslim women wear hijabs every day, so they each need several and buy new ones regularly.
The demand is clear for women wearing hijabs who want to match their headscarves with their clothes in line with current fashion trends. Indonesia may have a demand for more than 100 million headscarves every month. At a price of US$2 per piece, this is at least a US$200 million industry, accounting for Rp.6 trillion.
However, the local clothing industry, such as headscarves, etc., are not produced in factories, but are made by about 7,000 to 10,000 housewives. Just like the domestic agricultural product planting industry, tens of millions of scattered farmers deliver the headscarves they produce to wholesalers, who then forward them to brands.
However, a trend is becoming more and more obvious, and more and more Chinese-made headscarves are appearing in the local market. On the basis of local popular styles, some small elements that cannot be produced locally are also added. Some headscarves are mixed with a kind of gold thread when weaving to make them look sparkling.
The high quality and low price made in China easily broke through the local industry threshold, and Indonesia’s garment industry was beaten to pieces. . </p
