RI to boost regional trade

RI to boost regional trade

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): To reduce its growing trade deficit, Indonesia said yesterday it would trim commerce with richer countries and turn to Southeast Asian markets.

Iman Taufik, Indonesia's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said his crisis-hit country was spending too much on capital goods, or the component goods used for building larger products, from developed countries.

"This may be one of our problems in the past," Iman was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency. "Our deficit in capital goods, electronic and automotive (sectors) from the North countries amounted to US$40 billion (in 1995), which we have to reduce."

Iman, who is visiting Kuala Lumpur, said Indonesia planned to buy more from its ASEAN "brothers," including more car parts from Malaysia.

Other Southeast Asian nations also have suffered from declining currencies.