T

he Bandung municipality has yet to draw up a road map to develop its creative industries despite having received an accolade by Channel Asia News last December for being one of five most creative cities in Asia.

The head of the Bandung Creative City Forum, Ridwan Kamil, said Bandung’s inclusion in the five cities underscored international acknowledgement of the city’s creativity.

Bandung was picked as the pilot project for becoming a creative city in Asia in Yokohama, Japan, in 2007, thus the creation of “Bandung Creative City”.

Ridwan said the creative industry road map was essential to identify statistical data, current conditions and problems faced by the industry so that a development strategy to address key issues could be drawn up.

He said the Bandung municipality tended to leave the creative economy to develop and run on its own.

“The municipality has done nothing much, as it has allowed the creative economy to develop by itself, as if on autopilot. It survives without interference from the government, which is slow in responding to its growth,” Ridwan said.

Bandung’s Industry, Trade and Cooperatives Office head, Ema Sumarna, said the road map would be drawn up together with those employed in the creative industry so as to ensure it reflected their needs.

The creative industry in Bandung began in 1998 with the establishment of seven distro brands, which later grew to around 1,200 distro in 2010 and are now one of the economic backbones of the city.

She said at present, the creative industry was dominated by clothing outlets with the concept of distro, or distributors, out of a total of 5,191 businesses employing 15,276 workers, and providing economic value-for-money for hundreds of thousands of people. Bandung is also known as a culinary hub with thousands of cafes and restaurants, as well as being a haven for games, music and multimedia industries.

“The road map must meet the aspirations and needs of those in the creative industry. Don’t let the road map be dominated by government institutions,” Ema said in Bandung on Thursday.

She said the municipality had provided a public space for the creative community to gather, at Simpul Space #2, Jl. Purnawirawan, No. 7, Bandung, which was inaugurated at the end of last week.

The public space was established following a visit by Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu to Bandung on Feb. 11.

The creative industry has proved itself by contributing 12.8 percent of the city’s Gross Domestic Income in 2002, which increased to 14.5 percent in 2007 and 14.6 percent in 2010.

A creative activist for crafts and book lovers in Bandung, Tarlen Handayani, said Bandung’s inclusion in the top-five creative cities in Asia should lure more people to Bandung.