RI unprepared for free market: Tycoon

JAKARTA (JP): A prominent businessman has warned that Indonesia will not be ready to face tighter competition in the free market era after 2003 due to the poor coordination among its companies and the poor quality of its human resources.

According to Antara, Sofyan Wanandi, of the Gemala Group, said Saturday, "How can we be ready within seven years to compete in the free market era if there are no organized preparations, while coordinated cooperation among small, medium and large businesses has not been established?"

Indonesia and the other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), under the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) agreement, are committed to liberalizing their trade by 2003.

Besides Indonesia, ASEAN groups Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"Supporting medium and small businesses in the globalization era is not easy for bigger enterprises, which are already occupied with tight competition against foreign companies," Wanandi told a workshop held to commemorate Youth Pledge Day.

The meeting also presented Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo as a speaker.

Wanandi also said that Indonesia's education system should be able to produce more specialized experts by, for example, introducing computers to elementary students, if the country wants to prepare better human resources to face free market competition.

However, Siswono is more optimistic than Sofyan. Siswono quoted futurologist Hamiss McRae as saying: "Indonesia will be the biggest country in the 21st century after Japan and China in the Asia Pacific region."

The minister also quoted a World Bank report stating that during the period from 1994 to 2000, the economies of East, Southeast and South Asian countries will grow two-and-a-half times faster than the European countries and the United States. (06)