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Bookstore Gunung Agung to close up shop this year after 70 years
One of the country's oldest bookstore chains has announced it is closing its five remaining outlets, citing operating losses exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Stock illustration of a person taking a book from a bookshelf (Unsplash/Christin Hume) (Unsplash/Christin Hume)
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t the age of seven decades, PT GA Tiga Belas, the company behind local bookstore chain Gunung Agung, plans to shut down its last five outlets this year after gradually closing its stores across the country since 2020.
The company said it was unable to overcome the mounting operating losses it had endured since 2013, and which was exacerbated by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GA Tiga Belas said it had made efforts to cut operating costs during that period, while admitting that these efforts had not been enough.
Several stores in Surabaya, Semarang, Gresik, Magelang, Bogor, Bekasi and Jakarta were affected in 2020 as it started to scale down operations to stay afloat.
"[Our operating cost] has not been comparable with our sales performance every year. And the situation became more difficult with the emergence of COVID-19 in 2020," GA Tiga Belas management said in a statement on Saturday.
Gunung Agung is one of the oldest bookstores in the country. It was founded in 1953 by Chinese-born entrepreneur Tjio Wie Tay, also known as Haji Masagung, and organized its first book fair the following year.
Competitor Gramedia was established almost two decades after Gunung Agung first opened its doors.
