Permasalahan dalam pembangunan industri batik di Terengganu

Malaysia merupakan sebuah negara yang dikenali dengan kepelbagaian hasil kraf tempatan. Majlis Kraf Dunia-Asia Pasifik mengiktiraf batik Malaysia sebagai salah satu kraf tempatan yang terkenal di peringkat global. Batik adalah satu teknik untuk menghiasi kain dengan rekaan corak yang menggunakan lilin sebagai penahan untuk menghalang warna menembusi bahagian lain atas kain yang telah dicorakkan. Sebagai industri luar bandar, batik mampu menyediakan peluang pekerjaan kepada penduduk tempatan dan kemudiannya menjadi penyumbang utama kepada pendapatan isi rumah. Pada hakikatnya, batik boleh bertindak sebagai kain, kraf dan seni Malaysia pelbagai fungsi. Oleh yang demikian, batik telah diiktiraf sebagai produk warisan negara yang bernilai tinggi. Melalui konsep 1Malaysia, batik telah diklasifikasikan sebagai pakaian kebangsaan dan mampu menjadi penyatu dalam sesebuah negara berbilang kaum. Sebagai produk warisan, batik mampu menyokong aktiviti pelancongan kebudayaan dan industri fesyen negara. Situasi ini menunjukkan batik mempunyai permintaan dalam pasaran tempatan dan luar Negara. Namun, prestasi sebahagian besar firma batik masih lagi didominasi oleh perniagaan perusahaan kecil dan sederhana. Malah, sebilangan dari perusahaan batik adalah bersifat mikro. Bilangan pekerja yang kebanyakannya telah berusia dan kebergantungan yang tinggi terhadap bahan mentah dari luar menjadi isu utama kepada masa hadapan industri batik negara. Maka, objektif kajian ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti permasalahan yang dihadapi oleh pengusaha batik dalam pembangunan industri batik negara. Satu kaji selidik yang ditadbir sendiri di kalangan 21 pengusaha batik telah dilaksanakan di Terengganu. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan permasalahan dalam industri batik melibatkan bahan mentah, pekerja, dan pasaran dan persaingan. Oleh itu, kerajaan dan agensi yang berkaitan perlu memberi tumpuan kepada isu-isu ini bagi memastikan kemampanan industri ini pada masa hadapan dan generasi muda dapat memahami batik sebagai promotor budaya Malaysia dan warisan bernilai tinggi yang perlu dipelihara

Malaysian batik industry contribution analysis using direct and indirect effects of input-output techniques

The objective of this paper is to examine the economic contribution of batik industry to the Malaysian economy by using the input-output analysis technique. Today, batik industry is known as a successful cottage industry. Throughout the years of its existence, batik industry has contributed to creating jobs for local communities, raise the prestige of country's fashion industry through creative design on fabric, support the development of country’s cultural tourism industry as well as to lead the development of Malaysian craft industries. Despite the success of the industry, it's still developed by small enterprises and even, some of batik firms are categorized as microenterprises. This sense raises the question of the extent to which batik industry contributes to the Malaysian economy. Data on batik making in the Malaysian Input-Output Table 2010 was used to examine the economic contribution of batik industry in terms of direct and indirect effects of input-output techniques. This analysis found that this industry contribute significantly to the Malaysian economy through the advantages of indirect effects that is, how the first-order effects of batik industry give rise to second and higher-order effects to other sectors and also, lead to an additional input required especially import commodities and labor

The impact of innovation on firm performance in the Malaysian batik industry

This paper aims to explore the extent of innovation in the Malaysian batik industry and to analyse the impact of innovation on the batik firm's performance. The evolution in the batik industry has brought various innovations to the batik making process, batik products, as well as the marketing and organisational methods. However, some of the batik entrepreneurs maintain the traditional approaches and managed manually. Using face-to-face interview surveys in Kelantan and Terengganu, we found that batik entrepreneurs in the sample have taken some initiatives to undertake innovations, especially in the marketing and batik making process. Results from empirical analysis revealed that only product innovation has a significant impact on batik firm's performance. This study offer a new finding for the idea of incorporate all four types of Schumpeterian innovations to analyse its impact on firm performance in batik industry

Intersectoral linkages of Malaysian Batik Industry: an application of input- output analysis

This paper examines the contribution of batik industry to the national economy through the idea of inter-industry linkages. Batik industry’s contribution to Malaysian economy is through the performances of the manufacturing in textiles, the development of tourism with being high-valued heritage products, and to the total Malaysian craft sales. The local batik entrepreneurs also require local traders of raw materials for producing batik from abroad to the local market. These shows that batik not only plays a vital role in fostering heritage and cultural, but it has economic values via its contribution to the other production sectors in economy. However, it is difficult to measure the economic contribution of the batik industry because there is no specific data on this industry in the SME Annual Report and the Malaysian Handicraft Annual Report. Thus, we used data from Malaysian Input-Output Table 2010 to measure the industrial linkages of batik industry with other production sector in Malaysian economic structure. It is found that batik industry has backward linkages with other production sectors. This result implies that stimulating growth in the output of the batik industry would benefit other sector through positive spillover effects due to the higher demand on the output of other sectors (e.g. textiles) to be used as inputs by batik firms in producing batik

Traditional craftsmanship: the origin, culture, and challenges of batik industry in Malaysia

Batik is a process of dyeing fabric by making use of a resist technique. Approximately, 70 % of the national industry in Malaysia is derived from SMEs,and microenterprise is one of the main components in SMEs. In the Malaysian context, most of batik enterprises have been categorized in SME industries.Recently, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).had classified the craft industry as one of the items in the creative industries.They believe the creative industries will provide new opportunities for developing countries to leapfrog into emerging high-income countries due to the contribution on output level, employment, and tourism sector. Even though batik production has long been established in this country, unfortunately, it is still dominated by microenterprises with around 86 %. Hence, this paper is written to bring readers to understand the origin, culture, and the challenges faced by batik makers in order to preserve and flourish batik industry in Malaysia

Macroeconomic variables and in-migration in Malaysia’s developed states

Nowadays, in-migration is one of the important phenomena that affects urbanisation and development in the destination area. Indirectly, it will cause the rapid growth of the population, leads to overcrowding, competition for jobs, unemployment, poverty and the formation of new towns in the destination area especially urban areas. However, for rural destination areas, in-migration of professionals is important to stimulate economic growth. Hence, the objective of this study is to forecast and analyze the effect of macroeconomic variables on in-migration into developed states in Malaysia. Using the annual time series data from 1980 to 2012, Autoregression Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Grangercausality test were conducted. The findings have found that long run and short run relationships exist between inmigration and macroeconomic factors for developed states. The forecasting until year 2020 expects that in-migration will increase in Perak and Penang. Investment factors that are concentrated in the developed states also affect the population’s decision to migrate especially in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. To promote the economic growth, foreign direct investment and domestic investment for development sector should be intensified to improve household incomes in the region. Besides, Perak and Selangor need to improve the existing policies to ensure that there is an increase in foreign direct investment and domestic investment

Economic contribution, innovation and labour creation in batik industry

Batik is one of the handicraft products that belongs to the textile-based category. Batik refers to fabric-dyeing method with the resist technique. Starting with small-scale activities, the batik industry has since developed into a successful rural industry, which is also known at the national level. The Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation acknowledges batik as the primary contributor to the sales of handicraft products in Malaysia. Despite its positive performance in the local market, some batik entrepreneurships are still regarded as microenterprises in terms of small and medium enterprise (SME) business classification. Hence, the firms are expected unable to reach their full potential or can only gain day-to-day income. This then raises a question in regards to the connection between the batik industry and the Malaysian economy. Therefore, the first issue is on measuring the economic contribution of the batik industry to the Malaysian economy. However, due to the limitation of series data related to batik industry performance, the Malaysian Input-Output Table 2010 will be used to measure the variables. Through the industrial linkage model, this study found that batik industry contributes significantly through the backward linkage, indicating a stimulating growth in terms of benefit from the batik industry to the other sectors rather than the batik industry alone. Furthermore, decomposition analysis results show that the first-order effect of injection in the private consumption of batik in final demand contributes to second and higher-order effects in the other sectors of the Malaysian economic structure. This is due to the additional input that is required to satisfy the increase in output demand. This study offers a new finding for the input-output theory related interindustry transactions between batik industry and other production sectors in the Malaysian context. The second issue highlighted in this study is related to the impact of innovation on batik firm performance. The evolution in the batik industry has led to innovation in the batikmaking process, batik products, marketing and organisational methods. However, some batik entrepreneurs follow traditional approach to manage their firm activities. Meanwhile, the third issue addressed in this study is about labour creation in the batik industry. Being a labour-oriented industry, batik entrepreneurs should have enough workers to manage each stage in the batik-making process and save the time, so that the number of production can be increased. However, at present, a majority of employees consist of older folks and contract workers (daily wage). Being a rural industry, batikmaking faces intense competition that may hinder its growth. In response to both issues, this study used data acquired from face-to-face survey in Kelantan and Terengganu to analyse the impact of innovation to the performance of batik industry and to determine which firm resources that influence labour creation in the batik industry. There are 62 batik firms in Kelantan and Terengganu that participated in this study. For the second objective, results from the ordinary least square method reveal that only product innovation has significant impact on batik firm performance. This study also offers a more detailed view on the effect of all four types of Schumpeterian innovation on batik firm performance. By using the same method, the third objective produces evidence for resource-based theory on labour creation. Results show that firm age and firm sales greatly influence labour creation in batik industry. The information about contribution, firm performance and labour creation in batik industry is important to help batik entrepreneurs to enhance the economic well-being of local communities in terms of job opportunities and household income. Overall, the batik industry is not only valuable to the development of Malaysian cultural heritage, but it is also an important asset to the country’s economic growth in the future, through its contribution as a successful rural industry

Kepelbagaian strategi pembelajaran tulisan asas Bahasa Jepun (Hiragana): satu kajian deskriptif

Kertas kerja ini membincangkan kepelbagaian strategi yang digunakan oleh pelajar dalam mempelajari tulisan asas bahasa Jepun iaitu Hiragana di peringkat asas. Sebagaimana yang diketahui umum, bahasa Jepun mempunyai 3 sistem tulisan iaitu tulisan Hiragana merupakan tulisan paling asas dan diikuti dengan tulisan Katakana dan Kanji. Kajian terkini dalam penyelidikan bahasa Jepun di Malaysia lebih berfokuskan kepada aspek penulisan karangan, pemahaman, tatabahasa, komunikasi dan fonologi. Kajian yang mengkaji bagaimana pelajar belajar dan menguasai tulisan bahasa Jepun masih lagi tiada (Senarai tesis Universiti Malaya). Justeru itu, kajian ini ingin mengenal pasti apakah strategi pembelajaran yang digunakan oleh pelajar ketika belajar tulisan Hiragana semasa di luar kelas. Sampel kajian adalah terdiri daripada 44 orang pelajar kursus Bahasa Jepun I, yang ditawarkan sebagai kursus elektif oleh Jabatan Bahasa dan Komunikasi, Fakulti Pengurusan dan Ekonomi, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT). Data kajian yang diperolehi mendapati bahawa dalam pembelajaran tulisan Hiragana, pelajar-pelajar UMT tidak hanya memberi penekanan pada pembelajaran sendiri malah pembelajaran melalui pengajaran pengajar juga dititikberatkan. Strategi yang memerlukan kerjasama daripada pengajar juga adalah di antara kedudukan yang teratas dalam kajian ini