Kadin to promote research

Kadin to promote research

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(KADIN) will promote the establishment of research and
development (R&D) programs in private firms to seek ways to boost
the country's industrial exports in the coming years.

Kadin's chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, told reporters after a
hearing with Commission VII of the House of Representatives (DPR)
here yesterday that last year's decline in the growth of the
country's industrial exports had has spurred Kadin to looking for
ways of bringing them up.

The government has set a growth target of 17.8 percent per
annum for industrial exports in the coming five years.

Aburizal said the country's exports of industrial products
during the first 10 months of last fiscal year (April 1993 to
January 1994) increased only by 10.65 percent to US$19.38 billion
from $17.52 billion in the same period of the previous
year.

He said the slower growth was probably caused by an increase
in competition due to the emergence new competitors, such as
China, Vietnam and India, on the world market.

High invisible costs, low labor productivity and lack of
technological mastery may have also caused the decline in
industrial exports, he added.

Iman Taufik, Kadin's vice chairman for mines and energy, said
the government should help facilitate the establishment of R&D
programs in private firms because such programs are very
expensive.(02)