RI economy to suffer should U.S. attack Iraq

RI economy to suffer should U.S. attack Iraq

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Indonesia's economy, still struggling to recover from the
economic crisis in the late 1990s, would experience another major
setback if the U.S. launched a military strike on Iraq, a
foreign-based economist said.

Hal Hill, an economics professor at the Australian National
University, told Antara that the attack would severely damage the
country's economy and the rest of the world, with the risk of a
stock market crash and global economic recession looming large.

He said that this would further hurt Indonesia's exports.

Hill explained that the war would not only discourage foreign
investors from coming to the country but could also cause
existing ones to flee on fear of a possible backlash from Muslim
radicals here.

"I don't think they (foreign investors) would dare to come to
Indonesia because a war might cause radicalism to develop in the
country," Hill said on Friday, adding that the scope of anti-
Western sentiment would depend on whether the attack were
perceived as unilateral action by the U.S. or carried the
approval of the UN Security Council.

"In the latter case (attack without UN approval), I'm very
worried that friction between the West and Islam would be more
intense."

He said that even though not all of Iraq's population were
Muslims, a U.S.-led attack would create solidarity between Muslim
people worldwide, including those in Indonesia.

Commenting on some remarks that a war would benefit Indonesia
in that it would send the oil price rocketing, Hill quickly
brushed aside such a possibility, saying that in the longer term,
it would be a blow to the local economy.

Indonesia is an oil exporting nation and the only member of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the
region.