Side meetings arranged for Habibie at ASEM
By K. Basrie
LONDON (JP): The Indonesian Embassy here has arranged a series of bilateral meetings for Vice President B.J. Habibie with several Asian and European leaders when they gather here next week.
Ambassador Rahardjo Jamtomo told a group of visiting Indonesian journalists Monday that arrangements were made for Habibie to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President Jacques Chirac and leaders from China, Malaysia and Japan.
The bilateral meetings will be held on the sidelines of the Second Asia-European Meeting (ASEM) on April 2-April 4, Rahardjo said.
Habibie, the technology czar who was elected vice president this month, will be making his debut in his new capacity at an international summit here next week.
President Soeharto, 76, has expanded the task of the vice president to include representing him in various international forums, including the ASEM, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In the past, Soeharto attended most of the summits.
The inaugural ASEM was held in Bangkok in 1996. The forum was then seen as a means of promoting economic cooperation between the two regions and for Asia as a balancing factor given the increasing pull of trans-Pacific economic ties.
The vice president is also scheduled to meet with former British prime minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher, whom Rahardjo described as "an old friend of Habibie".
The Indonesian delegation will include Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas and several director generals, Rahardjo said, adding that budgetary constraints limited the size of the contingent.
He expressed concern at the poor showing of Indonesian media in covering the important event, noting that only one Indonesian TV crew had applied for media accreditation.
Also in the Indonesian delegation will be Radius Prawiro, a former economic minister assigned by President Soeharto to help resolve the mountain of unpaid offshore debts of Indonesian companies. "I guess you know what his role will be," Rahardjo said.
The summit will focus on the economy, including discussing the economic crisis affecting Indonesia and other Asian countries, Rahardjo said.
The summit is also expected to come up with a proposal for a common fund to assist Indonesia's economic recovery, a plan to support the rupiah's exchange rate and a solution to the corporate debt problem, he said.
In the run-up to the summit, Rahardjo said he had also met with British companies with investments in Indonesia to discuss the current economic crisis. "They have all pledged to stay in Indonesia. So we have nothing to worry about," he said.
The ambassador cited British Aerospace and British Gas among the largest British investors in Indonesia.