Biotechnology may 'spell disaster'

JAKARTA (JP): Biotechnology may improve people's welfare but misusing it will spell disaster, President Soeharto warned yesterday.

Biotechnology promises to overcome disease, pollution, destruction of biodiversity, food shortages, energy crises and other problems.

"But biotechnology may bring catastrophe to the human race if it is misapplied," the President said at the State Palace while opening the Indonesian Biotechnology Conference.

The conference, due to end June 19, at the Jakarta Convention Center has brought together 670 experts from 23 countries.

The three-day conference aims to encourage experts from different countries to exchange ideas on biotechnology.

Soeharto said that science and technology had enabled mankind to make spectacular strides.

"With science and technology, we can achieve things that we could only imagine in the past," he said. "I'm sure that in the coming decade we will achieve something that we now think is simply impossible."

Indonesia and other developing countries considered scientific and technological development essential to improving people's welfare, the President said.

"But developing countries trail far behind industrialized states in mastering science and technology," he said.

If this disparity was not properly addressed, he said, injustice and conflict between poor and rich countries would continue.

Accompanied by Minister of Agriculture Syarifudin Baharsyah, Soeharto said that Third World countries would continue to strive to narrow the gap in scientific and technological development through international forums such as the United Nations.

Progress in biotechnology has also opened up big business opportunities.

"The trade of biotechnological products is expected to increase from US$70 billion a year now to US$100 billion at the turn of the century," he said.

The conference is being organized by the Indonesian Consortium of Biotechnology, which was established by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Bandung Institute of Technology and Gadjah Mada University. (06/pan)