BPPT set to sell expertise to private sector

JAKARTA (JP): The state-run Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) is formulating a new policy which will enable it to sell its expertise to the private sector, according to a senior official of the agency.

Deputy head of the BPPT Jana Tjahjana Anggadiredja said on Monday that the policy would allow the agency's work units to enter into partnerships with the private sector.

"We hope the new policy can help local industry to benefit from our cheaper technology products to cut their high technology costs," Jana told The Jakarta Post following a seminar on technology.

But Jana did not provide any details of the new policy or the time frame.

He explained that many local companies had been severely hit by rising technology costs following the sharp fall in the value of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar, given that many of them used imported technology.

Jana said many work units of the BPPT were ready to provide the advanced technology needed to support local industry.

There are 38 work units under the BPPT, which employs some 3,000 researchers.

Agribusiness, energy and the environment, and design and engineering were among of the divisions of the BPPT which were ready to collaborate with the private sector, Jana said.

The BPPT was established in 1978 by B.J. Habibie, who was a very influential minister for research and technology during the era of former president Soeharto. Habibie was later handpicked by Soeharto to succeed him as the country's third president in 1998.

While the BPPT can list many admirable breakthroughs in its more than two decades of existence, the agency has not been without its critics who claim that it has usurped state funds for numerous high-tech schemes that have yet to bear fruit.

Following the 1997 economic crisis and the downfall of Soeharto, the BPPT could no longer obtain enough funds to finance its operations and properly pay the large number of researchers attached to it.

Jana admitted that many companies still doubted the BPPT's capabilities.

"This is mainly due to a lack of information," Jana said.

Meanwhile, State Minister of Research and Technology Muhammad A.S. Hikam, who was also present at the seminar, regretted the poor dissemination of the BPPT's technology products.

"We have invented many kinds of technology here. But we have never been successful in applying this technology in the country's industry," Hikam said.(03)