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Jakarta Post

By the way ... : Made in Indonesia: Walk the talk and mark the walk

There’s been an enthusiastic revival of support for Indonesian products over the past few years

Lynda Ibrahim (The Jakarta Post)
Sun, August 15, 2010

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By the way ... : Made in Indonesia: Walk the talk and mark the walk

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here’s been an enthusiastic revival of support for Indonesian products over the past few years. As Inacraft can certainly boast, the annual handicraft exhibition has grown tenfold in eight years, with on-site retail transactions and to-ship orders reaching billions of rupiah this year.

Other trade and retail exhibitions are also booming, like the once-promising ICRA, the exclusive textile fair Adiwastra Nasional and the new Fashion & Craft Fair.

I love shopping and happen to live near Jakarta’s main exhibition halls, which I often visit. Sometimes I even submit to going through the hassle of entering trade expos, like the one recently held by the leather and footwear association. But the time I spend at the expos is well worth it.

Rows of leather manufacturers displayed their latest creations. Some were obvious treasures. A few Central Java artisans fashioned stylish finely-crafted and tastefully-colored household items, like trays, baskets and jewelry boxes. Companies in Tangerang and Ubud produce unique accessories on exotic skins. A small Yogyakarta firm offered exquisite cowhide leather handbags made in chic nude tones screaming for summertime in Paris. All of these products could belong on the shelves of high-end retailers worldwide.

I merrily snagged a few fabulous finds for cheap. Something suddenly bothered me as I traipsed along with adoring nationalistic pride: How can I be sure these products were made in Indonesia?

Most of them were unlabeled and bereft of a manufacturer’s brand or location. I first assumed the items were samples, but then I realized that items in retail exhibitions are mostly unlabeled.

Before I left the corporate world three years ago, I worked as a brand manager, trained by multinational consumer goods companies. I learned that labeling is crucial to the overall concept of branding. Correct branding can often determine the immediate success or failure of a product’s life cycle.

Indonesia’s rich cultural diversity has fostered a tradition of precious handicrafts, some finer than others, yet each contribute to the aggregate value of Indonesian-made products. The stakes get higher as these products compete in global markets, where country of origin is often a determining factor of price.

If fine hand-woven traditional clothes and classy hand-tooled leather products aren’t appropriately labeled, Indonesia may continually be known for only producing mediocre plastic wares.

Granted, most industrial-scale exports fall under complicated international trading laws, which may explain why you’ll find Banana Republic shirts or Victoria’s Secret panties labeled “Made in Indonesia”. Yet there are smaller volume products that target niche markets, often personally selected by lifestyle categories. Some of these exports are shipped entirely unmarked.

I’ll never forget how I eventually found the much-rumored China-made batiks in a Pekalongan museum. I found a simple red shirt priced at Rp 35,000, with a “Made in China” label. I almost wept for my late grandmother, who was a hand-drawn batik maker. My mother cried when I showed her the shirt.

True, that lousy shirt could not compete with the finesse of Indonesian hand-drawn batiks, but we shouldn’t assume that everyone recognizes quality. How long will it take before China catches up? The gap is closing.

If our batik and other handicrafts remain unmarked, how can we blame overseas buyers who underestimate Indonesian arts and crafts because retailers and consumers have difficulty recognizing the difference?

Similar misconceptions have already occurred. When traveling abroad, many foreigners excitedly showed me their “Javanese” textiles, which were mostly unlabeled Sumatran songket, Batak ulos or Timorese weavings. I once read in a foreign décor magazine article about how fashion designer Giorgio Armani proudly pointed at his prized “Balinese statues,” when in fact they were a pair of classic Javanese loro blonyo.

We’ve walked the talk. But in this ruthless world of global commerce, we can’t assume that six billion people are all equally informed.

Mark it “Made in Indonesia”, always.

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