Economic recovery must be top priority: Kadin

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) reminded the government yesterday to keep a tight focus on restoring the country's economy despite its political reform commitment.

The chamber's chairman Aburizal Bakrie said political progress in the country was heartening but he warned the nation not to divert its attention from rehabilitating the ailing economy.

"Try not to be too enchanted with political issues only, the economy is very crucial because it involves the lives of many people," Aburizal, popularly known as Ical, told reporters.

"Many people cannot afford to buy food, millions have lost their jobs, businesses can no longer operate, malls and offices will be closed. This is incredibly heavy on both our micro and macro economies."

Ical said the country was still in dire straits, and it needed considerable funds to finance the recovery process.

These would be extremely hard to find, he added, because the country had lost confidence of both the domestic and international communities.

The government must concentrate on regaining the confidence, he said.

Ical criticized the current overwhelming trend of politicking in the country, although Kadin agreed with the openness and political reforms.

"People are like a pendulum. Back when expressing opinions was not as free, everyone just let (former president Soeharto) Pak Harto do the speaking, now everyone wants to be heard, even those whose field of expertise is not politics."

Kadin backed calls for a special session of the parliament to elect a new president, the establishment of new laws on the political system and a general election.

For the time being, however, the nation must also take the economy into account as a matter of survival, he said.

"The question is: can we live for another six months?" he asked.

Kadin had formed a Supporting Team for the Economic Reform Implementation, headed by one of its executives A.A. Baramuli.

It will assess the economic reform implementation and will help the government in policy-making decisions.

Baramuli said the team would establish a six-month term program to rehabilitate and reconstruct the current production distribution and marketing system of the economy.

"It is clear that the national economic fundamentals are frail, in contrary to what people might have thought before, and this condition had contributed to the crisis," he said.

Baramuli said the current focus on politics could threaten the extremely susceptible supply of essentials.

"Politics is not only in Jakarta, there are thousands of islands in the country, what happen to the people in those areas?

"They are in worse pain."

He said the progress in politics must not result in the decline in the economy.

Ical said the government must began evaluating some of the policies of the current system.

For example, the subsidy in wheat must be lifted as it only benefited certain groups, he said.

He advised subsidies should instead be allocated for the supply of rice.

They should be given for products which contain local materials to benefit local farmers and expand the shrinking area of rice fields, he said. (das)