APEC creates impetus for small business to grow
JAKARTA (JP): Tony Agus Ardie, a leader of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), welcomed the strong commitment made by APEC ministers in Osaka over the weekend to launch joint efforts to nurture small businesses.
"The joint statement, issued at the end of the APEC ministerial meeting on small and medium-scale enterprises, will maintain the momentum of the political will of governments in the region to develop small businesses," said Tony, Chairman of the Indokor business group.
The economics ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which met for two days in Osaka, reemphasized the crucial role of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) to maintain the dynamic economic growth in the region.
Tony, Vice Chairman of Kadin's Governing Council, hopes that the APEC economic leaders meeting in Bogor in the middle of next month will provide a clear direction, especially for small business development.
"That, I think, will maintain the momentum of strong political will to promote small enterprises which make up the majority of businesses in the region," he added.
But of more importance, according to Tony, the APEC summit will, hopefully, send a stronger message to Indonesian business conglomerates that small business development and poverty alleviation also contribute to sustainable economic development.
The gap between small and big businesses in Indonesia has been dangerously wide and the number of absolutely poor people is still relatively large, as President Soeharto himself has often pointed out, he said.
In Tony's view, there have been too many big talks, meetings, seminars and similar forums about the important role of, and the need for, the development of small businesses and improving the life of the poor.
Real action
"What is needed now is real action by strongly committed businessmen because my own experiences in working with small businessmen and even poor villagers show there are actually many things, even simple ones, that big firms can do to help small enterprises and to alleviate poverty," noted Tony.
He agreed with the views of the APEC ministerial meeting that access to skills, information, technology, financing and markets is the key to solving most of the problems hampering small business development.
Tony cited the tie-ups his Indokor group developed with small scale businessmen in quarrying sodium bentonite in East Java to be supplied to oil and natural gas drilling firms.
"With adequate training and technical extension services the small scale businessmen are able to produce sodium bentonite that meets the American Petroleum Institute (API) standards," he pointed out.
He added the process exacts learning costs that should be borne by big companies. "But the bottom-line is quite positive in terms of the business viability and contribution to develop the capability of small scale entrepreneurs."
Indokor, and its five subsidiaries, produce drilling fluids for oil mining firms; Provide a wide variety of services to the petroleum industry; Produce bentonites for dam cementing and bleaching earth for cooking oil; Farms shrimps and act as the exclusive agents of various American chemical and environmental technology products.
Tony said his company also avoided using modern, heavy equipment in quarrying calcium bentonite in a barren land-area near Sukabumi, West Java, in order to be able to employ local people.
"We even avoid using our own trucks to carry the bentonite to our processing plant in Merak on the north-western tip of West Java to give business opportunities to local trucking firms," he pointed out.
Indokor has also been doing similar programs in its shrimp- farming ponds near Merak, where small scale farmers are either hired as employees or trained as shrimp growers", using our extension service and marketing networks," he added.
"So what big and medium-scale businessmen need is a real compassion to help small scale firms and the poor people. If they have the compassion, they surely will find the appropriate opportunity," Tony added.(vin)