Media ban not to affect Australian business in RI
JAKARTA (JP): The recent media ban will not dissuade Australian business people from investing in Indonesia, Australian Minister for Trade, Senator Bob McMullan, said here yesterday.
"There is nothing to suggest that Australian business people should regard this as an unstable environment in which to invest," McMullan told reporters.
The minister, who is here to lead a business delegation to the "Australia Today Indonesia 1994" trade and cultural promotion, said that Australians have not been discouraged from doing business in Indonesia despite the protests against the media ban.
The Indonesian government closed down Tempo, Editor and DeTIK magazines on June 21, saying that they had endangered the national stability.
"Although as citizens the business people will have individual opinions about what took place, in terms of their investment decisions, I don't see it as yet as having any impact," McMullan said.
Future trade between the two countries will be impressive, following the "successful" trade fair, he said.
The three-week trade and cultural promotion was opened here in the middle of this month, and included a two-day business forum which ended yesterday.
The forum, participated in by more than 300 Australian businessmen, was opened by Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
The trade and cultural promotion is the largest promotional event ever undertaken in the region by Australia, costing some A$12 million (US$8.65 million) to support. The promotion, commissioned by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is officially open until July 3.
Encouraging
"I was encouraged to see the number and the seriousness of Indonesian business people visiting the event," McMullan said, adding that Indonesia should be the most important country for Australia.
Peter Nicholas Kane, the managing director of Indoaust Consultant Pty Ltd, a Sydney-based consultant firm which opened a stand at a trade exhibition held here to coincide with the business forum, said, "We should have done it (the promotion) years ago."
Kane told The Jakarta Post that the promotion helps Australians look at the real developments in Indonesia.
McMullan, however, did not specify any business deals made by Australian delegates and their Indonesian partners during the promotion's first two weeks.
Some Australian officials said most of the delegates are still in the preliminary stages of negotiations.
Business executives, government officials and economists from both countries yesterday discussed doing business in the fields of energy, food packaging and processing, telecommunications, transport infrastructure, agribusiness, building and construction as well as mining.
Graeme Robertson said at the business forum, which ended yesterday, that understanding Indonesian cultures will provide a competitive edge for Australians doing business in Indonesia.
Robertson, the managing director of New Hope Corporation, said that a younger generation of Australians, raised in the more multiracial society of the 1970s and 1980s, will play a crucial role in developing Australian investment in Indonesia.
"They come to Indonesia with fresh eyes and the imagination to create something new and something different from the older generation," he said, referring to older Australians who feel more comfortable in a western and English-speaking environment. (pwn/09)