Soeharto wants better business cooperation

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto yesterday called for better cooperation among large, medium and small businesses in a bid to strengthen the unity of the nation.

Soeharto said at the opening of the workshop of the National Coordinating Board of Small and Medium-scale Businesses at the Merdeka Palace that to have a sound and solid economic structure, there needs to be strong medium businesses which were able to support small businesses and cooperate with bigger ones.

"Although cooperatives, state firms and private businesses are rapidly developing, their progress is not at the same pace. Therefore, they have varying strengths," he said.

He pointed out that to anticipate the introduction of a free market in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, the country's private sector must take advantage of every possible opportunity.

"To do this, small and medium businesses need high capital, technology and skill," Soeharto said. "They will be helpless if they struggle alone, but if they do it together they can become a very big force," he said.

In a separate interview with reporters, Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Subiakto Tjakrawerdaya stressed that Indonesia, as stipulated in the May 23, 1995, deregulation package, will continue to bar direct foreign investment in retail businesses because Indonesian small and medium-scale enterprises "were still incapable of competing" against them.

He said, however, that indirect involvement of foreign parties in the retail business, such as in providing technical and management assistance, would be allowed.(pwn)