Legislators wants small business to be protected
Legislators wants small business to be protected
JAKARTA (JP): Small businesses not only have limited access to
government facilities and protection, but have even become
victims of economic policies, the Indonesian Democratic Party's
(PDI) faction at the House of Representatives said yesterday.
"Small traders are often evicted from their locations when the
government modernizes traditional markets," a spokesman for the
faction, Marsinggih Marnadi, said in a House plenary session on
the small enterprises bill.
He said more than 30 million small entrepreneurs and tens of
thousands of vendors must be waiting for their chance to deal
with fair and conducive businesses.
The faction disagrees with using the term "the weaker economic
group" in the bill because empirical data proves that small
businesses are often tougher and more resistant against economic
recession.
However, fair and conducive chances for small businesses will
never occur unless the government dissolves current monopolistic,
oligopolistic, oligopsonistic and cartel practices, as well as
collusion and corruption, said Marsinggih.
He, therefore, urged that the House and the government draft
anti-cartel and anti-monopoly bills.
The other factions -- Golkar, the Armed Forces and the United
Development Party (PPP) -- of the House agreed with the PDI
faction, saying that any relationship between the big and small
businesses should not be established out of mercy or charity, let
alone gift offering.
It is compulsory for big companies to foster small ones, while
small ones have the right to advance in a complimentary scheme.
It should be in terms of the empowerment of the small, said
the spokesmen for the factions.
Simon Patrice Morin of the Golkar faction told the session
that the "distortive" economic and market structure must be
changed into a more conducive one.
"The government, for example, should ease licensing procedures
for small businesses and protect them by providing venues which
are close to living and working areas," Simon said.
A.M. Saefuddin of the PPP faction noted that the low quality
of human resources still hampers the improvement of small
enterprises.
Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Subiakto
Tjakrawerdaya, who represented the government at yesterday's
session, told the press after the meeting that people often blame
conglomerates for the slow growth of small businesses.
"It is probably because conglomerates have assisted only few
of the so many existing small businesses," said Subiakto.
He said the government responded positively upon conglomerate
owners' recent vow to provide assistance for small businesses.
After following a course on the implementation of the state
ideology Pancasila in business activities in Bali last month,
about 100 conglomerate owners issued the Bali Declaration, saying
that they would make efforts to help small businesses.
The minister agreed with the factions' proposals to use the
term of empowerment instead of protection and guidance for small
businesses.(kod)