RI making sporadic use of USDA credits

RI making sporadic use of USDA credits

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Indonesia is making only sporadic use of
U.S. Department of Agriculture farm export credit guarantees and
opening letters of credit is still very tough, USDA General Sales
Manager Chris Goldthwait told Reuters yesterday.

"It comes in fits and starts," he said in a telephone
interview, referring to the country's use of the U.S. export
credit guarantee program.

"Over the past six weeks we've seen about $30 million worth of
business under the program, not as much as there could be," he
said.

The amount of business done so far for Indonesia in the fiscal
year to September 1998 was about $30 million for cotton and $70
million for soybeans, he added.

Turning to the situation on Indonesian letters of credit to
finance imports, he said, "It's still very difficult...some are
being opened in Indonesia and, I gather, a little bit is being
done here in Singapore."

Goldthwait stopped off in Singapore at the start of a tour
through Asia, leaving for Jakarta later today and taking in the
Philippines and South Korea next week before returning to the
U.S. on July 30.

He met banks and trading companies in Singapore to talk about
the economic and banking situation, and use of the credit
guarantee program.

During his trip to Asia, he'll be trying to make progress on
negotiating a PL480 Title I agreement with Indonesia.

Public Law 480 is a program to boost U.S. farm exports and
help foreign nations, and Title I provides for government-to-
government export transactions with financing in foreign
currency.

Goldthwait will also look into the operation of the commercial
credit guarantee program for U.S. farm exports -- GSM102 -- in all
the countries of the region, especially Indonesia, the
Philippines and South Korea.

Thirdly, he'll be doing some preliminary and exploratory work
in Indonesia with respect to the new food aid initiative
announced last weekend by President Clinton.

Clinton said the USDA would buy 2.5 million tonnes of U.S
wheat to prop up slumping local prices and pledged that the wheat
would be donated to needy countries such as Indonesia.

"How much will go to Indonesia eventually? We don't really
have any idea as yet," he said.

"Part of what I'll be trying to do is figure out what level
might be appropriate both in terms of the humanitarian need and
the need to avoid displacement of commercial sales," he added.