APEC summit is make or break time for Indonesia

APEC summit is make or break time for Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
forum summit in Indonesia this November will give Indonesia a
chance to put itself on the map, but it will require thorough
preparation to be successful.

That was the advice yesterday offered by officials from
Washington D.C. and Seattle, the United States, the latter the
host of the successful first APEC summit last year.

Arthur Green, Deputy Director of the Foreign Press Center at
the White House, said, during a Worldnet dialog beamed from
Washington, that the APEC summit would provide huge business
opportunities as well as media publicity for Indonesia.

Green recalled that more than 3,000 journalists converged on
Seattle to cover the many APEC meetings.

"It is an opportunity to showcase trade, investment and
tourism for the host country," he said. "It's worth millions of
dollars of free publicity."

Green, however, recalled that hosting the summit involved
major logistical arrangements that would have been impossible
without the assistance of Seattle's business and civic
communities that made up the host committee.

Jane Noland of the Seattle City Council, who is currently
visiting Indonesia, said that more and more people across the
globe learned about Seattle because of the summit.

Hosting it has also opened up major business opportunities for
local firms, not just corporate giants like Boeing and Microsoft,
but also the smaller ones, Noland said. "It's a wonderful
opportunity to lay groundwork for the future."

The Worldnet dialog, organized by the U.S. Information Service
(USIS) of the American embassy, also presented Terry Ray of ABC
News and Gary Sheaffer of the State Department. In Jakarta, the
panel consisted of Ishadi and Akmalsyah Naina of the Ministry of
Information and Parni Hadi, editor of the Republika daily.

Later in a roundtable discussion organized by USIS, they were
joined by four people from Seattle -- Noland, Raymond Waldmann of
Boeing, Page Miller of Seattle Commissioner and Bill Stafford of
the city's chamber of commerce.

U.S. Ambassador Robert L. Barry said the APEC summit would be
a major opportunity for Indonesia to become better-known abroad.

"Not many people in America know about Indonesia," Barry said,
recalling that no less than President Clinton once mentioned that
Indonesia is one of the world's most underestimated countries.

The APEC summit, which goes by the official name of APEC
Leadership Economic Meeting, or ALEM, is tentatively set for Nov.
15 at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, some 60 kilometers south
of Jakarta. Prior to that, there will be the annual APEC
ministerial meeting, which will be held in either Jakarta or
Bali.

Director General of Press and Graphics, Subrata, who took part
in the discussion yesterday, said that the government has not yet
established the organizing committee for the APEC summit.

Subrata, however, was confident that logistics would proceed
smoothly, given Indonesia's experience in hosting the 10th Summit
of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1992 which brought together
leaders and representatives from 104 countries.

The APEC summit in Indonesia will be slightly larger than that
held in Seattle since there will be two newcomers to the club --
Mexico and Chile.

The other 16 APEC members are the United States, Canada,
Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the six members of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations -- Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. (emb)