Hartarto asked to take action on Bali Declaration

Hartarto asked to take action on Bali Declaration

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has assigned Coordinating
Minister for Industry and Trade Hartarto and other ministers to
formulate guidelines to assist large companies in their
declaration to help accelerate the development of small
businesses.

Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Subiakto
Tjakrawerdaya said after meeting with Soeharto at the state Bina
Graha building that the guidelines should be ready before the end
of the year.

Some 100 business tycoons, after a course on the state
ideology Panca Sila at Jimbaran, Bali, on Aug. 27, vowed to
narrow the economic gap separating them and their smaller
counterparts. Their vow is being called the Bali Declaration.

Eka Tjipta Widjaja, a tycoon in the businesses of plantations,
manufacturing and banking that was present in Bali, has suggested
that big companies allocate two percent of their net profits for
small business assistance.

In a further development, a small group of tycoons, led by
Sofyan Wanandi, formed a task force to formulate the Bali
Declaration's action plan.

Subiakto said yesterday that Soeharto has ordered Hartarto to
articulate the guidelines and to discuss them with the tycoons.
"The concept, when agreed, will be disclosed to the public," said
Subiakto.

Similar issues of income distribution and asset ownership were
discussed by President Soeharto with 32 businessmen, most of whom
were ethnic Chinese, at his Tapos cattle ranch in West Java in
March 1990.

Criticism

However, some critics contend that the Bali Declaration will
suffer the same fate as the Tapos discussion, the results of
which have not been implemented completely.

The central executive board of the Indonesian Democratic Party
said in a statement yesterday that the Bali Declaration did not
cover the main problems faced by Indonesian entrepreneurs.

"The social and economic gaps and injustices are mostly the
result of corruption and collusion between businessmen and
bureaucrats," a deputy chairman of the party, Kwik Kian Gie, said
in the statement.

The statement added that the main problem is not with the
increasing number of large-scale businesses in the country but
with the way they're run.

Kwik also suggested that the Bali Declaration be realized
under the coordination of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry, not by a tycoon task force.

Subiakto denied accusations that the Tapos discussion was a
failure, saying that 185 big companies have since sold to
cooperatives 80.9 million shares, which are paid for with
dividends obtained from share ownership. (kod)