Megawati awards best performing exporters

Megawati awards best performing exporters

Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri awarded on Friday the
Primaniyarta service medal to 34 companies assessed as the best
performing exporters last year, praising them for their
contribution to the national economy despite the difficult
business climate.

The 34 exporters were selected from among 3,067 exporting
companies throughout the country by a team of analysts,
representatives of business associations and several ministries.

"I am greatly impressed with your hard work to steadily expand
your markets and diversify your export goods at this difficult
time," the President said when awarding the service medals.

Megawati acknowledged the climate at present was not highly
conducive for doing business due to a lack of legal certainty,
bureaucratic red tape and other problems inherent in the
transition from a centralized government to regional autonomy.

The President said the government had done its best to make
things easier for business operations but the overall condition
was still worse than businesspeople had expected.

She called on the business community to improve cooperation
and communication with the government to face the challenges the
nation faced in the current transition to reshape its national
life.

"By steadily diversifying your export markets and export
commodities, you have contributed greatly to the national
economy," she added.

The President praised businesspeople's great contribution to
the creation of employment, pointing out that jobs provide people
with purchasing power to fuel consumer demand and production.

Consumer demand has been the main locomotive of Indonesia's
economy since 1998.

Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M. Soewandi urged
exporters not to be complacent with the traditional export
markets but be aggressive in seeking new markets.

"Our non-oil exports last year expanded only by around 2.5
percent, lower than their target of 3 percent," Rini said.

Rini was, however, optimistic about achieving the 5 percent
growth set for non-oil exports this year.

"I know that is a tall order, but with hard work and
aggressive promotion, we can achieve it," she said.

The Primaniyarta award has been organized annually
to promote exports and motivate companies to be more active in
marketing their commodities worldwide.

Most of the exporting companies presented awards are resource-
based ventures located outside Java, showing that products from
natural resources remain the most competitive exports from
Indonesia.

For example, PT Intibenua Perkasatama in Dumai, Riau province,
was presented the award not primarily for its export sales that
averaged US$380 million a year between 1997 and 2001 but due to
its success in diversifying its crude palm oil-based products and
expanding its export market to around 29 countries.

Intibenua, which was founded by businessman Bachtiar Karim in
1994 with a daily capacity of only 500 metric tons of palm kernel
oil, at present has a daily capacity to process 1,600 tons of CPO
into olein, stearine and fatty acid.

The evaluation team of the trade and industry ministry also
gave it a high score for its community development programs and
its contribution to absorb fresh fruit bunches from more than
120,000 hectares of state, private and smallholder oil palm
plantations in Riau.

Likewise, PT Megasurya Mas in Sidoarjo, East Java, was awarded
for its exceptional achievement in expanding its exports of soap
and margarine to more than 60 countries in Asia and Africa, its
great contribution to local community development and its high
work safety record.

Other top resource-based exporters last year were PT Bintuni
Minaraya fishing company in Papua, PT Antam nickel company in
Southeast Sulawesi, PT Pupuk Iskandar Muda fertilizer plant in
Aceh and PT Barito Pacific Timber in South Kalimantan.

The best export performance was assessed by the increase in
export sales, diversification of export market and products over
the past five years.

The program classifies the award into four categories of
exporting companies by their size and annual turnovers: small
exporter group for those with average export value ranging
between US$500,000 and $5 million; the medium group with $5.1
million to $30 million; the upper medium group with $30.1 million
and $70 million, and the large group with more than $70 million.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said it would give
incentives for every Primaniyarta recipient such as first option
to join government foreign trade missions.