Cabinet's economic team strives to bolster exports

JAKARTA (JP): The Cabinet's new economic team has embarked on what it calls a concerted drive to bolster exports, which the team envisions as the second engine driving the country's economic recovery, after private consumption.

The team, led by chief economic minister Rizal Ramli, met on Thursday with major exporters, bankers and analysts to discuss removing barriers to exports.

"Promoting exports is the second point of our 10-point economic recovery acceleration program, which has been outlined in the revised letter of intent to the International Monetary Fund," Rizal said.

Exports, he added, would be boosted by optimizing the 40 percent excess capacity in the manufacturing industry and using excess liquidity in the banking industry to finance international trade.

"We will work all-out to improve the business climate and give exporters whatever assistance is possible within the regulatory framework, to enable them to take the greatest advantage of the rupiah's competitive exchange rate," Rizal said.

"Our doors therefore are always open to businesspeople who need to bring up any problems they encounter in the export sector," Minister of Industry and Trade Luhut B. Pandjaitan added.

Also in attendance at the meeting were Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) chairman and Junior Minister of National Economic Restructuring Cacuk Sudarijanto, Bambang Soetrisno from PT Apac Inti Corp., Marimutu Sinivasan and Marimutu Manimaren from the Texmaco-Polysindo group, Rachmat Gobel from PT Nasional Gobel and executives from dozens of other companies and state banks.

Luhut said the economic ministers welcomed suggestions and advice from businesspeople on how to increase exports.

"I am highly confident that with greater cooperation and coordination between the public and private sectors, we will be able to expand our monthly exports, which in July already exceeded US$5.3 billion," Luhut said.

Luhut added that he was not embarrassed to say he often asked businesspeople for advice in fine-tuning policy instruments to bolster exports. "I am not a trade expert. And I should admit that as a facilitator, I often pick the brains of experienced exporters, including Mr. Sinivasan here, for valuable input in making policy," Luhut said.

Rizal said his team would coordinate with other state institutions, including IBRA and the central bank, in the drive to strengthen exports.

Such coordination and cooperation is crucial because exporting involves multisectoral operations, including bank lending regulations, he said.

Rizal also spoke about a meeting his team held with the presidents of the country's largest debtor companies on Tuesday to discuss concerted policy actions to accelerate the economic recovery.

Almost all of the largest conglomerates, including the Salim Group, are now either under the ownership, supervision or management of IBRA pending the restructuring of their bad loans.

"I told the presidents, including Anthony Salim of the Salim Group, to continue their best efforts to improve the value of their businesses. I urged them to jump onto the economic recovery wagon that has started rolling, otherwise they will be left behind.

"But I also warned them to settle their debts with the government, otherwise I will make them pariahs," Rizal said.

The minister said his team also had met with the central bank board of governors and had scheduled a fortnightly brainstorming conference to work out effective policies.

Businesspeople at the meeting raised common problems encountered by enterprises, especially since 1998. These include political and security concerns, arbitrary land claims by locals, licensing red tape, labor problems and securing trade financing loans for those companies which have yet to restructure their debts with IBRA.

Rizal admitted labor issues would become a major problem in the business sector within the next five years, especially considering that more than 60 trade unions had sprung up during the reform era.

"I know not all of them are genuine trade unions bent on fighting for the rights of workers. Some of them may also be organizations set up only to squeeze businesspeople for money.

"Therefore, my team has scheduled a meeting with trade union leaders on Monday to ask for their cooperation, which is vital for sustaining the nascent recovery," Rizal said.

"Be assured, the present Cabinet is a no-nonsense Cabinet. True, my team includes former analysts like myself who tend to analyze things endlessly. But there are also real doers among us such as Luhut," Rizal added.

The minister also said over the next month or so he would continue to talk and give speeches as part of a crusade to restore confidence and optimism, without which "we will never get out of this crisis".

"We are actually very rich in resources. We are truly a great nation, but we now seem to be a very pessimistic people. Even the perception of our journalists is sometimes more pessimistic than the foreign perception of our country," he said.(vin)