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span class="inline inline-right">Batik talk: Visitors chat in a booth at the World Batik Summit 2011 in the Jakarta Convention Center during its opening on Wednesday. Themed “Indonesia: Global Home of Batik”, the summit will run until Oct. 2. (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf)The government is expected to shortly introduce quality standards for batik production and apply labeling for a whole range batik products as part of a newly launched blueprint on batik preservation and development, a minister has said.

Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the government would enforce Indonesian National Standards (SNI) for a wide range of batik products.

Businesses consider labeling to be important to protect locally made batik products from imported products, especially from China, which have increasingly flooded the domestic market, and to raise awareness among local customers about homemade batik products.

With the issuance of the standard blueprint, Indonesian batik will be promoted to the same level as other world-class textile products, she said.

“We are facing difficulties in labeling batik-patterned textile. We are seeking ways of how to apply it as well as how to supervise its implementation,” she told reporters at her office during a press conference related to the World Batik Summit, which began on Wednesday and will run until Sunday.

During the opening ceremony of the summit at the Jakarta Convention Center, Mari handed over the blueprint to President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Mari said that batik has high economic potential and has increasingly become one of the country’s most significant commodities at home as well as in the overseas market.

With the blueprint, the government expects the batik industry to become a driver of the micro economy by 2025, as 99.39 percent of all 55,912 batik producers last year comprised micro- and small-sized enterprises, she said.

“We also aim to attain a growth rate of 15 percent from 2012 to 2015, 16.5 percent from 2016 to 2020, and 18.5 percent from 2021 to 2025,” she said, adding that this year, the government expects to an 11.2 percent increase in output from Rp 3.9 trillion in 2010, which was up 50 percent from 2006’s Rp 2.6 trillion.

Exports, according to the blueprint, are expected to grow on average by 10 percent from 2012 to 2015, 15 percent from 2016 to 2020 and 20 percent from 2021 to 2025, along with government efforts to diversify its markets.

Exports increased by 55.94 percent to $22.3 million in 2010 from $14.3 million in 2006.

However, Mari did not give further details on the targeted figure for this year’s exports or elaborate on the new markets to be developed.

The Industry Ministry’s director general for small- and medium-sized industries, Euis Saedah, recently said that there is a high demand for Indonesian batik from neighboring countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia.

Indonesia’s main export destinations for batik products are currently the United States, Japan and European countries, such as Belgium, Germany and Sweden.

In 2009, Indonesia’s batik received acknowledgement from UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.