70% of Indonesian TPT firms may permanently close

Seventy per cent of textile and textile product (TPT) firms in Indonesia face permanent closure as a result of plunging domestic and export demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Indonesian Filament and Fiber Producers Association (APSyFI), which recently said 80 per cent of textile companies have halted operations temporarily while facing cash flow issues.

Financial support from the government is urgently required as around 1.8 million TPT industry workers are already furloughed or laid off because of the pandemic APSyFI secretary-general Redma Gita Warawasta said in a statement.

Redma said APSyFI and the Indonesian Textile Association (API) had conveyed their request to the government to relax policies but there has been on significant development on that front, according to a report in an Indonesian newspaper.

According to the industry ministry’s latest estimate, the TPT industry in the country employs around 135,000 workers annually, making up 22.5 per cent of the total 600,000 workers in the industrial sector.

One of the associations’ requests includes penalty fee waivers from state electricity company PLN and state gas company PT PGN for textile companies with electricity and gas consumption below the minimum threshold.

The association also complained about the financial sector not providing credit relaxations to textile companies, even though the Financial Services Authority (OJK) has issued a regulation on credit restructuring for companies impacted by the pandemic.

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