The Jakarta Council for Handicrafts, which regularly holds the Jakarta Souvenir Design Award, plans to massively produce the winning products from this year'€™s competition.

Organizing committee chairman Handaka Santosa said on Thursday that the committee planned to cooperate with private firms to produce and market the winners products, so more people would be aware that Jakarta had iconic souvenirs.

Handaka said the goal of the Council (Dekranasda) and the competition was to establish a Jakarta souvenir center, but it could not be achieved if the city did not have the products yet.

'€œWe realized that after holding the competition for three consecutive years, we need to produce the merchandises massively. What'€™s the point of winning the awards while the products are unknown to the public?'€ he said during the opening ceremony of the exhibition of the 20 finalists'€™ products at the Senayan City in South Jakarta.

Unlike other tourist destination regions, Jakarta hardly has signature icons or items that local and foreign tourists search for when looking for souvenirs.

Dekranasda has been holding the Souvenir Design competition to search for a new icon for the city'€™s tourism since 2010.

However, the winners'€™ products are not well-known as they are produced in limited numbers, and sold only in a few number of outlets and exhibitions.

Handaka said that Jakarta should have signature souvenirs as it was good for the city'€™s image and tourism business.

'€œIf we go to Singapore, for example, we easily find images of the Merlion [lion head statue] '€” the city'€™s landmark '€” in almost all kinds of merchandises,'€ he said.

Handaka said in order to achieve the goal, the committee set a special clause to the participants of this year'€™s competition.

'€œThe rights of production of the winners'€™ products are in the hands of the committee,'€ he said.

The finalists'€™ products exhibited from Thursday to Aug.18 include Betawi batik clothes, Ondel-Ondel puppets and candy tasting of a traditional Betawi herbal drink, Bir Pletok.

There are also monopoly board games featuring Jakarta'€™s iconic places.

The committee will announce the winners from three categories '€” general public, university students and small and medium industry owners on the last day of the exhibition.

The head of the Jakarta Tourism Agency, Arie Budiman, who also attended the opening ceremony, said the committee hoped that many private manufacturers and shopping center owners would be interested to produce and sell the souvenirs.

Arie said a souvenir business was actually very promising in Jakarta with around 28 million domestic tourists and 2.1 million foreign ones who came to the city every year.

'€œWe also try to improve the quality of the products, so they will meet the standard of the market,'€ he said.

Senayan City chief operations officer Henny R Udy said that the mall planned to provide a special space for a booth selling Jakarta iconic merchandises.

She said, however, that the quality of the products must meet with the standard determined by the market and the availability of the products should also be guaranteed.

'€œIf the products are good and affordable, malls and shopping centers will be happy to provide spaces for them to be sold,'€ she said.

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