“Batik is our face, batik is our pride and through batik, a lot of job opportunities have been created,” said the President during the opening of the Yayasan Batik Indonesia (YBI) event, which was temporarily put a hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from President Jokowi and First Lady Iriana, the event was also attended by PT PNM’s president director Arief Mulyadi.

The beauty of batik with typical Blora motifs on display at the GBN stole Jokowi’s attention. PNM, which holds customers from various business sectors encouraged micro-small-and-medium enterprise (MSME) players engaged in PNM-assisted batik businesses to take part in the event. The customers were flown from different regions across Indonesia, with Era becoming one of PNM’s eight superior customers to exhibit the beauty of her batik motifs. She had no idea that yesterday would be the day she had the opportunity to share the motifs of Blora’s blatik to the President of the Republic of Indonesia.

“In the past Pak Jokowi once visited Blora regency, but I did not have an opportunity to shake his hand. Now, finally, he even held my batik cloth,” she said.

With 14.6 million customers under its assisting program, PNM also strives to provide its customers with access, particularly by facilitating meetings with the market in order to expand their business outreach. Aside from clustering businesses on a regular basis, exhibitions and bazaars are frequently held, with today’s event being one of them.

“PNM’s closeness to its customers is not merely confined to the financing, but it also covers empowerment. Talking about empowerment, we want our customers to have a growth mindset in which our vision enables them to grow, care and believe in real inspiration,” said Arief, “as such, these activities are one way to make our customers, mostly moms, increasingly exposed to market dynamics,” he continued.

Era joined PNM as customer seven years ago. She embarked on the business with an initial ceiling of Rp 10 million (US$658) and now her turnover has increased with the ceiling of Rp 250 million. Product creations with Blora motifs on display vary, such as jackets, outers, bags and  fabrics with eco-printing. The products are offered at affordable prices, starting from Rp 100,000 to Rp 750,000.   

Jakarta residents eager to find a variety of typically beautiful batik motifs from different regions can directly visit the ground floor of Senayan Park, Jakarta.

You can find PNM customers’ booths that offer a range of batik motifs, starting from mega mendung, a cloud pattern hailing from Cirebon, West Java, gentongan from Madura, East Java to kawung, the geometric print from Yogyakarta, and even you can find batik with Indigofera coloring that has been handed down for more than 50 years. By buying batik sold at affordable prices, you can bring home the fabric of the nation.

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