TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Provincial Industry and Trade Offices in Yogyakarta, along with the Regional Crafts Council, will hold the Worlds Batik City Festival themed Batik to The Moon from Oct 25 to 29.
The festival will take place at the Jogja Expo Center as well as the citys renowned Malioboro Street and will cover Batik exhibitions, fashion shows, Jogja Batik Parade, International Batik Fashion Design Competition, Special Jogjakarta Batik Design Competition, as well as Batik souvenir competition.
"The festival is held to preserve the regions existence as the worlds Batik city," said Head of the Provincial Industry and Trade Offices Budi Antono in Yogyakarta on Wednesday.
On Oct 18, 2014, Yogyakarta had been appointed as the Worlds Batik City by the World Craft Council in Dongyang, China.
Antono further stated that the festival will feature an exhibition that showcases the seven criteria laid down by the Council, which include historical values, originality, conservation measures through regeneration, economic value, environmental friendliness, international reputation, and consistency.
He believed that apart from maintaining Jogjakartas reputation as worlds batik city, the festival is hoped to serve as the local communitys cultural and economic strength to increase production and sales and, at the same time, to boost the people`s earnings and welfare as well as create job fields.
"This year, we are collaborating with 150 Small and Medium Enterprises that have been selected previously," Budi remarked.
Head of the Provincial Craft Councils Development division, Polin Napitupulu, revealed that the office targets 5 thousand visitors per day during the festival, which will be very effective in opening access to the market for the Batik SMEs in Yogyakarta.
"We are sure that the potentials for batik sales transactions and cooperation between businesses will be very big during the festival," Napitupulu stated.
ANTARA
