Part 1 of 2: The challenge of security for the world economy
Part 1 of 2: The challenge of security for the world economy
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Santiago
It goes without saying that security and prosperity are two
sides of the same coin. But since Sept. 11, the dynamics between
them are changing. The demands for greater security are affecting
economic activities and business costs like never before. The
world economy, particularly APEC economies, must now strive to
find the right balance between security concerns and open trade.
I think all of us here today concur on the basic objectives
that we seek for the world economy. The bottom line is that we
want a stable, safe environment conducive for the international
economy.
A conducive environment means the maintenance of security at
all levels -- national, regional and international. A conducive
environment demands a healthy climate for investment and trade.
We all want our productive forces to inter-connect, grow and
expand, so that the incomes of our citizens can also grow.
And a conducive environment requires a secure and efficient
flow of goods, peoples and services within and across borders.
The problem is that, for now and the foreseeable future, our
economies must function in an international system which is
fraught with threats and turbulences.
Terrorist groups continue to prey on our economies, seeking to
strike a damaging blow to us with minimal resources. Non-
traditional security threats are becoming prominent. Trans-
national crimes are growing all its aspects, from narcotics
trafficking to money laundering, people smuggling to illegal
logging.
This is compounded by the increasing disparity between the
haves and the have-nots, between developed and developing
countries. And the specter of conflicts, be they old and new
conflicts, inter-state conflicts or intra-state conflicts,
continue to cast a worrying shadow over us.
The sum of all this is an unsettling sense of global
insecurity. Yes, some of us can talk proudly of successful
elections, or of great military victories, or about phenomenal
rises in GDP, or about export growth, or about expanding and
integrating markets, or about outstanding human development
index. Still, these things do not erase an uneasy feeling which
many of us feel about the present and future state of
international and national security.
We see this unsettling sense of global insecurity in many
developing countries, which are falling farther behind the
developed countries. We detect this jitteriness in many developed
countries, which are becoming increasingly worried about public
security and terrorist threats. We notice it in the restlessness
felt throughout the Islamic world. We see it being reflected in
the travel warnings to many nations across the globe. We see it
in the rising flow of illegal migrants between borders. And we
feel it in the phenomenal rise in the price of oil recently.
This situation presents great challenges for the world economy
in a variety of ways. Allow me to highlight at least six security
challenges for the world economy which in my view require the
attention of policy-makers and business leaders.
First, is the challenge of striking a satisfactory balance
between security concerns and open trade. Our economic
infrastructure needs to be guarded and well-protected against
terrorist attacks but not at a cost or burden to business in such
a way that trade flows will cease to exist. It is not an easy
matter to balance the need for increased security and our goals
to reduce transaction cost in the APEC region by 5 percent by the
year 2006.
Second, is the challenge of building a greater resilience.
The economies of the world must develop a capacity to withstand
the devastating effect of terrorist attacks and rebound quickly.
In the last three years, we in Indonesia were hit by three
major bomb attacks: The Bali bomb in 2002, the Jakarta Marriott
bomb in 2003, and the Kuningan bomb this year. All of them were
devastating -- the worst being the Bali bomb which killed over
200 people of various nationalities. But we recovered much better
after each attack. And for each attack, it took less effort to
rebound than the previous one. Look at our political stability,
our stock market, our exchange rate, tourism industry, flow of
travel, and the economy in general. All indices bounced back much
more quickly following each terrorist strike.
Ultimately, resilience is the responsibility of each
government. But any country experiencing distress will still need
a helping hand from its international friends. Gestures of
support and solidarity can go a long way in strengthening
resilience. Hard working Indonesians in the service industry have
complained that the travel warnings on Indonesia badly hurt their
livelihood, and many of them think they are being unfairly,
though unintentionally, punished for what the terrorists are
doing.
But we were also touched by the sympathetic gesture of a
number of foreign residents who decided to stay in my country no
matter what. That display of solidarity is not only appreciated
by Indonesians, it also sends a strong signal to terrorists that
they will not scare us into changing our way of life.
The third challenge is evolving the right kind of security
cooperation. While terrorism has been around for a long time,
fighting modern-day terrorists today is a new experience for all
of us. To deal with it, we need to change the way we think about
national and international security. During the Cold War,
governments ensured their national security by keeping
intelligence from each other. In the post-Sept. 11, post-Bali,
post-Riyadh, post-Madrid world, we can ensure our security only
by sharing our intelligence with one another.
To fight terrorists who ignore borders, governments must
evolve a different security culture. Our police, intelligence,
immigration officials must be able to work together extensively.
The community of nations must evolve a new global security
culture where the norm is for all law enforcement agencies to
cooperate with one another. This is what Indonesia and Australia
did when we co-sponsored a number of regional conferences on
people's smuggling, money laundering and counter-terrorism.
This is an abridged text of a keynote address given by
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the APEC CEO summit in
Santiago on Nov. 20, 2004.