Invest in Indonesia?

We are a foreign owned company (PMA) operating in Dompu, of Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara, in the production of cultured pearls under the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

The company started operations in early 1997 and has now become one of the biggest investments, amounting to trillions of rupiah, in the Dompu district, and is considered to be a major contribution to the welfare of the very resource-poor area of Calabai, Dompu.

We employ over 23,000 full-time staff, 70 to 100 contract workers and consistently donate to the local community.

We have observed many structural changes, primarily decentralization, to the Indonesian government and their effects on our administrative processes since the onset of our operations.

Presently, our company is very concerned about the apparent correlation between the significant investment our foreign shareholders have made and the lack of support we receive from relevant government authorities/ministries/departments (too many departments to keep track of), and most alarmingly, the absolute non-supportive role of the local police department to keep our investment safe.

First, there seems to be a great confusion as to where the authority lies within all government levels. We are a PMA company, and are now being asked to pay ridiculous amounts of money by our district government on things (permits, taxes, etc.) that, in the past, we paid to Jakarta at a much smaller scale.

Second, and most important, is our security situation, which has been declining severely in the last two years, and in light of our most recent security threat, our company could soon be on the verge of collapse if nothing changes in the attitude and discipline of the local police department.

Given the overall situation of insecurity above, I appeal to the Indonesian government, in this "Year of Foreign Investment" as declared, to consider our case as another alarming sign that the foreign investment climate will never improve if the mind-set and attitude of the government doesn't change.

FRANCESCO BRUNO, Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara