President of the Indonesia Footwear Association Eddy Widjanarko has warned that footwear export would drop by 1 billion USD in 2014 due to global declining demands and rising production costs.
The country is estimated to earn 4 billion USD from footwear in 2013.
According to Widjanarko, there is a decline in demands from the US market, which accounts for 80 percent of Indonesia’s export.
Meanwhile, production costs in the country keeps growing as local workers have been seeking for minimal salary increase, to at least 3.7 million rupiah for those in Jakarta in 2014 from the current 2.4 million rupiah.
Dealing with the situation, around 60 local factories in Jakarta are likely to move to other localities with lower production costs while 46 foreign companies tend to leave Indonesia for other regional countries.-VNA
