NAM members lack trade commitment

NAM members lack trade commitment

JAKARTA (JP): Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries have
insufficient political will to promote economic relations with
fellow members, says an analyst.

Hadi Soesastro, the executive director of the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, said Thursday the reason
there was little business between NAM members was that most of
them preferred trading with developed countries.

"Without firm political will from all members, no economic or
political arrangements could work," he told a seminar on the Non-
Aligned Movement at University of Indonesia, Depok, West Java.

He said NAM members, most developing countries, were
economically and politically dependent on developed nations
because few of them had performed well economically.

He was concerned that many members still requested help from
developed nations to settle their economic woes.

He acknowledged that developing countries could not isolate
themselves from the global economy and political systems
dominated by western countries.

"Members of the Movement should, however, build collective
economic self-reliance to gradually reduce their dependency on
the global market," he said.

Members must build regional or sub-regional market networks as
alternatives for their commodities, Hadi said.

Developing countries will not make any substantial progress
unless they eliminate their dependency on the international
market, he said.

"Indonesia almost always says no to new or sensitive economic
issues being discussed at international forums arguing that the
country is not ready to deal with the matters," he said, citing
this an example of how the country reduces its reliance on
developed countries.

The poor condition of trade "infrastructure" in member
countries still hampers the promotion of intra-trade activities.
Consequently most developing countries rely on foreign finance or
shipping companies to help them trade internationally, he said.

"For example, most of Indonesia's high quality garment exports
are arranged by Japan's Sogo Sosha," he said.

"Indonesian companies lack financial institutions to support
their international trade activities," he said, adding that
Indonesia still relied on French banks when trading with
Vietnam. (04)