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A
Handicraft Cooperative to Preserve Celuk’s
Image
Celuk recorded the
date of 2 September 1999 as a highly significant
day as some of the village’s leading
craftsmen gathered in a meeting to create
‘KPPC’ Handicraft Cooperative
Association of Celuk. This was designed
to keep Celuk’s image and handicraft
business successful.
 The
meeting initiators were, amongst others,
Kadek Ardiana, SE (economist), and I Made
Mustika. They aimed to solve a variety of
problems related to raw material supply,
capitalization, and marketing. The KPPC
Chairman, Drs. I Made Gede Sutama spoke
to ‘Bali Travel News’ recently.
Sutama, who is the owner of ‘Dede’
Art Shop, speaking in detail, stressed the
need to approach an enterprise capable of
supplying raw silver material at a reasonable
price due to a lack of financial capital
of the cooperative members.
 The
reasoning in defining the goal of the cooperative
has been a response to the third generation
of Celuk’s community losing interest
in the silver trade. It is very important
to overcome this stumbling block, otherwise
Celuk will lose its image as the number
one silver producer on this island. Such
a consequence would be a pity due to the
widespread fame of Celuk throughout Bali,
and Indonesia. craftsmen’s business
is ‘PPn’ of 10 % charged upon
raw material. “I support the craftsmen
in abolishing the handicap,” Sutama,
the dean of the Faculty of Economics Hindu
University, wrote in a letter directly addressed
to the Indonesian President and Vice President.
The dean demanded that both chief state
administrators lift the ‘PPN’
tax, charged upon raw materials. This would
facilitate the acquirement of raw materials
and would overcome speculative action by
Jakarta’s suppliers. The lifting of
this tax has become vital to the craftsmen
since they broke a contract with ‘Aneka
Tambang’ a state mining industry posted
in Jakarta, bringing about more difficulties
to the Celuk silver community.
(Poll)
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