Japan intends to resume car talks
JAKARTA (JP): Japan's foreign minister, Yukihiko Ikeda, said he intended to resume bilateral negotiations on Indonesia's national car policy in a bid to maintain good relations with Indonesia.
Ikeda said in Tokyo he had learned of Indonesia's and President Soeharto's disappointment with Japan's decision to take Indonesia's national car policy to a panel of independent judges under the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on April 30.
"We intend to discuss the problem with Indonesia for the sake of maintaining excellent bilateral relations," Ikeda was quoted by Antara as saying after a cabinet meeting Tuesday afternoon.
Japan's minister of international trade and industry, Shinji Sato, said he could understand President Soeharto's and Indonesia's disappointment.
Soeharto expressed his disappointment Monday over Japan's decision and ordered an end to bilateral negotiations on the issue.
The President, after a special meeting with several economics ministers and the central bank's governor, Monday, said the government would push ahead with its national car program.
"The Japanese move has strengthened our resolve to reduce our economic dependence on other countries," the minister/state secretary, Moerdiono, quoted the President as saying Monday.
The minister of industry and trade, Tunky Ariwibowo, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that he was optimistic Indonesia's national car program would be completed by the time the WTO ruled on Japan's complaint in 1999.
Tunky, who is in Japan on a trade mission, said in Kyoto yesterday Indonesia would go all out to complete the national car program.
"The government will assist the development of local component manufacturing to support the national car program," Tunky said.
He said Japan's move would not, however, affect bilateral relations between the two countries.
Indonesia's national car program, launched in February last year, gives duty and tax breaks to PT Timor Putra Nasional to make Timor sedans.
As the company has yet to build an assembly plant here, PT Timor Putra was licensed to import up to 45,000 fully assembled sedans from South Korea's Kia Motors Corp and sell them in Indonesia as national cars bearing Timor brandname..
Indonesia's Ambassador to Japan, Wisber Loeis, met Japanese ministry of international trade and industry officials Monday to clarify Japan's decision.
"The officials told our ambassador that Japan decided to ask for a WTO panel because the bilateral negotiations thus far had made no progress at all," a spokesman for the Indonesian embassy in Tokyo said.
In October 1996, Japan, the United States and the European Union filed separate complaints to the WTO over Indonesia's national car policy which they say is discriminatory and violates WTO rules.
But while Japan has decided to ask for a WTO panel to settle the dispute, the European Union and U.S. have continued bilateral negotiations with Indonesia under WTO supervision. (06/vin)