Small traders receive training to boost business

JAKARTA (JP): "Don't be surprised if there are Vietnamese shops next to yours one day". This was the message given to small traders at a workshop on how to improve their businesses.

The executive director of the Indonesian Skills Foundation, Pramidio, said the training was designed to prepare small traders to compete with foreign rivals.

ASEAN nations have different deadlines for the start of the ASEAN free trade association which begins in 2003.

Eighty traders from two South Jakarta traditional markets are taking part in the two-day training program which began yesterday.

Trainers from the Ministry of Manpower's city office and Bank Internasional Indonesia taught the traders about general management, banking, and how to improve sales.

Pramadio said the program aimed to give the traders practical skills.

"Local traders, who already face strong competition from each other, will soon have to compete with foreign rivals," he said.

The widely diversified Sinar Mas Group and Australian property giant Lend Lease Corporation also organized the program.

Sinar Mas and Lend Lease set up the Indonesian Skills Foundation in 1995.

Sinar Mas provides money and Lend Lease works with grants from the Australian Government.

The foundation is led by Indonesia's former Ambassador to Australia, Sabam Siagian.

Project training officer Gatot Sularto said this was the second free seminar the foundation had organized.

Earlier this year the government announced it had restricted the opening of new big retailers in capital cities to help small and medium businesses.

Big retailers operating in cities that were not provincial capitals before the decision was made had to set up partnerships with small and medium retailers.

Property consultant First Pacific Davies Indonesia said that retail space supply in Jakarta would rise 18.06 percent to almost 1.3 million square meters this year.

Retail expert Ramlan Zoebir said many foreign retailers had already entered Indonesia.

In the last six years at least seven foreign retailers have entered Indonesia to take advantage of the country's growing middle class. He said by 2000 Jakarta would have an extra 1.93 million square meters of shopping space. (03)