Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government should focus on infrastructure development to improve domestic industrial competitiveness, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) cairman Adi Putra Tahir has said.
"There is no significant improvement in industrial competitiveness because the government fails to focus on infrastructure. The government can only meet 30 percent of the economic budget and the rest is for the business sector, but it should be supported by infrastructure and the budget should be focused on infrastructure," Andi Putra said at the Kadin office here on Monday.
According to him, the government should start to focus 2011 budget on infrastructure development in agriculture sector in an effort to step up domestic industrial competitiveness.
"It is for agriculture infrastructure in wider sense. If the infrastructure for production and industrial products derivation in this sector is good, we will certainly be more competitive," he said.
He said the infrastructure in this case did not only cover physical development but also for the issuance of regulations which supported business and industrial progress.
Meanwhile Kadin deputy chairman for fiscal policy and monetary Haryadi Sukamdani said that in making the policy the government should also consider the capability in business and industrial sector to maintain competitive power.
"Do not make a policy which systematically weaken the competitive power by raising basic electricity rate tariff and plans to raise it again next year," Haryadi said.
He said it`s better for the government to improve energy policy so that industrial and business players were not burdened by high energy cost.
According to Indonesian Young Businessmen Association (Hipmi) chairman Erwin Aksa, domestic business players so far were less competitive with overseas producers because infrastructure had yet to be well developed and the government policy did not support business and industrial activity.
"Industrial development is also slow and only grows by four to five percent per year while in reality it could reach 11 percent in 1998," he said.
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