Preparing for free trade

Preparing for free trade

In anticipating the coming free trade era our big businesses need to be reminded that most of the facilities and regulations that have enabled them to grow so rapidly will be abolished. To prepare them for such a situation the government must continue its policy of deregulation. The regulations that have helped them grow must be phased out.

In the case of our intermediate and small scale businesses, however, it is the other way around. They lack adequate capital, employ modest technology, their production methods are traditional, their human resources are of low quality, they lack access to the market information network and are often located far from an adequate transportation network.

Under such conditions the competition of the free trade era would surely crush them. In order to make them more seasoned and capable of playing a role in the competitive world of the future they must be assisted by being provided with facilities and beneficial policies -- in other words, by regulation. The facilities provided could help them grow strong enough to compete under free trade.

Big businesses as well as intermediate size and small scale ones need to be made ready -- by deregulation for the big ones and by regulation for the intermediate-scale and small ones.

-- Suara Karya, Jakarta