Yogya design center gets UK, U.S. assistance

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Bantul, Yogyakarta

A favorite tourist destination second to Bali and home to thousands of handicraft industries, Yogyakarta, has announced plans to build a design center to help improve competitiveness of Indonesian handicraft products on the international market.

Warwick Purser, owner and president director of PT Out Asia, a major exporter of handicraft products in Bantul, gained support from the provincial administration and several international institutions with his proposal to build the center in Tembi hamlet, Bantul regency.

The center would be supported by an Indonesian competitiveness program called SENADA, run by international institutions including USAID, The British Council and Goldsmiths University of London.

As an initial step, a four-day workshop on sustainable design for home furnishing products is being organized in Tembi with more than 50 leading Indonesian homewares entrepreneurs from Java and Bali.

The workshop officially opened Wednesday and featured seven design experts from a leading design education institution, Goldsmiths, to share knowledge and help establish the center.

Following the workshop, a two-day working session focused on the establishment of the design center and its future activities would be held at the same location, involving locals and other stakeholders.

"We expect to be able to launch the center mid-this-year at the latest," Australian-come-Indonesian Warwick Purser told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the workshop Wednesday.

The establishment of such a center, Purser said, was urgently needed to strengthen Indonesia's competitiveness in the international market.

Design, he added, was an essential factor in the successful marketing of handicraft products.

SENADA's senior industry advisor, Patrick Kadian, said design was a crucial, dynamic factor in the market acceptance of home furnishings, with style cycles lasting 18 months on average.

"Results of many market surveys conducted by SENADA, have indicated that Indonesia was considered less competitive in terms of designs, when compared to its Asian rivals like China, Thailand, Vietnam, and particularly the Philippines," Kadian said.

Indonesia, Kadian said, in fact had a strong presence in the international marketplace with its renowned craftsmanship of products made from materials desirable to eco-consumers.

"Proper positioning of Indonesia as a producer of sustainable products, combined with the improvement of practices of leading firms and credible third party certification will make all the difference for Indonesia among the international competition," he said.