T

he Jepara administration has patented 99 wood carving motifs characteristic of the regency, so as to maintain the quality of its furniture and wood products for the benefit of local producers and carvers, the regent said.

"In doing so, we provided supporting evidence, such as the lung-lungan tree motifs, the specific holed carvings and the carved ornaments on the walls of the Mantingan Mosque, built in 1560," Regent Hendro Martojo told The Jakarta Post recently. Patenting them would prevent other countries from claiming the carving designs as their original creations.

The Jepara furniture business had its golden years from 1997 to 1998, when the rupiah was depreciating against the US dollar, getting as low as Rp 15,000 per dollar (now, one US dollar is Rp 10,000). Then, furniture was among Indonesia's top export commodities, with $200 million in exports, but the figure plummeted as the rupiah regained its strength.

Jepara furniture exports stood at $111 million in 2003, recovered to $138 million in 2004, but declined to $123.5 million in 2005. There were further declines to $115.6 million in 2006 and $104 million in 2007, but exports improved slightly in 2008 to $108 million.

"Imports of furniture from Vietnam, China, the Philippines and Malaysia two years ago shocked the furniture industry in Jepara. The products were quite good, but cheaper," Hendro said. However, the industry was slowly recovering as the regency was doing its best to maintain quality as well as improve product design.

The United States and Europe had been the export destinations for Jepara furniture, explained Hendro. Yet, as exports to both destinations have declined by 20 percent since the global economic crisis, producers have been trying to develop new markets in Middle Eastern and North African countries.

The new export markets, included Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Lebanon and other African countries, as well as a few Southeast Asian countries that had the potential to become a regional market.

Data from the Indonesian Furniture Association's (Asmindo) Jepara chapter shows the furniture industry in the regency employs about 64,000 people. It requires some 1,000 cubic meters of wood daily, 60 percent of which is teakwood followed by mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), mindi (Melia azedarach L.), meh and acacia (Acacia mangium) wood.

Association chairman Akhmad Fauzi said the regency is home to 348 big furniture enterprises and hundreds of small furniture enterprises, including 36 foreign-owned ones.

He expressed concern over the existence of "mafias" that were involved in the global business of Jepara furniture, citing the wide range of prices offered by different local businesses to foreign buyers.

"I went to America and saw furniture from Jepara being sold there. I told the trader that I could give him much lower prices than he got from his network. But he refused," Fauzi told The Jakarta Post.