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)