RI offers Burkina Faso plane-for-cotton deal

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto yesterday proposed to swap Indonesian-built planes for Burkina Faso's cotton during a meeting with Blaise Compaore, his counterpart from the West African state.

The offer was made before they witnessed the signing of an economic and technical cooperation agreement by their foreign ministers, Ali Alatas of Indonesia and Ablasse Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso.

Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono told reporters that during the meeting the President reviewed two possible ways of financing the sales of Indonesian planes to Burkina Faso.

One is through barter, in exchange for cotton, which Indonesia has been importing from Burkina Faso. Another is by obtaining credit from the Islamic Development Bank, which has schemes to finance trade within the Organization of Islamic Conferences.

As part of his four-day visit, Compaore will travel to Bandung, West Java, today to inspect the plant of the state aircraft manufacturer IPTN. He and his entourage will later travel to Bali to spend the remaining two nights there before leaving the country.

Moerdiono said the economic and technical cooperation agreement signed yesterday would act as an umbrella for future agreements between the two countries.

"The two leaders felt that the visit is quite a significant beginning because of the high level talks and the signing of the agreement. They hope other agreements will follow," he said.

At the meeting, the two leaders agreed that Indonesia will send a trade delegation to Burkina Faso to explore the possibility of investing in the cotton industry there. By helping to build spinning mills, Indonesian textile companies would only need to import threads rather than the cotton, Moerdiono said.

Indonesia also offered to help Burkina Faso develop its agriculture sector, including fisheries, and also forestry, tourism, telecommunications sectors and the training of Burkina Faso's aviators.

Funding for these programs, Moerdiono explained, could be obtained from third party sources.

President Soeharto also explained at length about Indonesia's policy on East Timor.

Jakarta never had any ambition to annex the former Portuguese colony, and it was the East Timorese who chose to become part of Indonesia, Moerdiono said.

"The President tried to convince his guest, that, seen from any angle, there was no reason whatsoever for Indonesia to annex East Timor or any other territory for that matter," he said, stressing the already huge territory and population Indonesia covers.

"My impression is that the Burkina Faso president fully understood Indonesia's position," the minister said.

Compaore, in response to President Soeharto, said he would order his ambassador at the United Nations to maintain closer relations with the Indonesian delegation, according to Moerdiono. (emb)