Government supports new economic body

Government supports new economic body

JAKARTA (JP): The government voiced on Saturday support for
the Committee for National Economic Recovery (KPEN), which was
formed by the country's business community to replace the
government-sponsored and now defunct National Business
Development Council (DPUN).

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Rizal Ramli said the
government welcomed the establishment of the KPEN and expected
the committee to play a significant role in helping to accelerate
the country's economic recovery.

"This (KPEN) is good. We really need input from business
people on what's really going on out there and how our policies
are being implemented because it is actually they who carry out
the policies," he said after a meeting with KPEN members.

He said the government was committed to working closely with
the country's business community in its effort to boost recovery
of the trade and industry sectors.

He said his office would hold monthly meetings with KPEN and
business players to keep the latter informed about the
government's new policies regarding the trade and industry
sectors.

Rizal met on Saturday with KPEN officials and the Indonesian
Chamber of Commerce and Trade (Kadin) to obtain information on
the current developments in the business sector.

KPEN was established on Sept. 5 by some business associates
and members of Kadin with the main objective of enabling former
DPUN members to realize their targeted working programs,
especially in creating one million jobs. The new committee was
attached to Kadin.

DPUN was one of two business councils formed by President
Abdurrahman Wahid in the early months of his presidency to assist
his Cabinet's work, but all the councils were abolished by the
President mid-August.

The committee has Kadin's boss Aburizal Bakrie as chairman and
tycoon Sofyan Wanandi, who is the former head of DPUN, as
executive director.

KPEN is made up of 32 people, most of whom are the country's
key business figures from various sectors like James Riady,
Subronto Laras, Soegeng Sarjadi, Sunyoto Tanudjaja, Haryadi
Sukamdani and Yusuf Faishal.

KPEN is set to work only for a one year period, but this could
be extended if Kadin and the business community considered it
necessary.

Sofyan said that for the short term, KPEN's main target was to
help some 170,000 medium and small-scale businesses to deal with
the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) as part of their
debt restructuring programs.

He said KPEN would ask the government to give special
treatment to medium and small-scale businesses to accelerate the
restructuring of their debts so they could immediately obtain new
credit and start operations.

He said KPEN would also work to create as many job
opportunities as possible and act as mediator between
corporations and labor unions in any labor disputes. (cst)