Batik, the Locomotive of Pekalongan’s Creative Economy

Muhammad Bashir Ahmad Syawie, the city mayor, managed to stick the image of batik as the unique characteristic of Pekalongan. UNESCO then crowned Pekalongan as the first creative city in Indonesia.

Realizing that Pekalongan has no natural resources and commodities, when he was elected the first time to lead Pekalongan in 2005, Muhammad Basyir Ahmad Syawie decided that the textile industry, batik in particular, should become the locomotive for the city’s economic development.

Basyir noticed that the only industry which was strong enough at that time was textile. He then planned a strategy. As the son of textile entrepreneurs, he truly understood on how to build the industry for such cultural product. According to him, batik cannot rise simply by doing promotions.

The son of Aminah Said Basalamah started by putting up a basic foundation to strengthen the industry of batik from the bottom. ’’First thing is about the knowledge. Batik is a cultural heritage. So, the history, philosophy, to the way of making batik, should be disseminated widely first’’ he said, Jawa Pos quoted.

With that kind of thinking, Basyir enforced the inclusion of batik knowledge into high school’s curriculum throughout Pekalongan. He did not stop there; he even became one of the founders of batik study program in SMKN 3 Pekalongan, Pekalongan University, and Politeknik Batik Pusmanu.

“So, everyone can study batik both in terms of skill and knowledge,” he explained. In addition, he thought really hard on how to develop an ecosystem to support the production of batik as well as pushing for more public exposure. For instance, he initiated the canting industry as the main tool of batik.

After the foundation was set, Basyir then took a step on promotion. He took advantage of the momentum created back in 2007 when Malaysia claimed batik as their cultural heritage. Alongside the Indonesia’s trade chamber (Kadin), he submitted an application to UNESCO so that batik would be acknowledged as Indonesian Cultural Heritage. “I did 36 meetings between 2007 and 2009 until finally batik became the world cultural heritage from Indonesia,” he recalled.

His efforts were not fruitless. In 2013, the textile industry sector was able to contribute up to 19.09 percent of the Gross Domestic Regional Product (PDRB) with a total of 861 mid-to-upper institutions in the batik industry. In the same year, the commerce sector contributed 23.52 percent of the total PDRB with the export value of around USD 25.3 million.
Nowadays, the proudest achievement is the acknowledgment from the public for Pekalongan to be the Batik City. He did not deny that Jogjakarta and Solo may have longer history for batik. However, Pekalongan is able to merge such history with the changing trend so that batik can always be on demand.

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