Media ban not to affect Australian business in RI

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)