Sofyan rejects Kadin's affirmative action idea

JAKARTA (JP): Businessman Sofyan Wanandi supported the idea of empowering indigenous people but rejected what he called a partisan proposal put forward by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He suggested the government take comprehensive nonpartisan corrective measures by empowering small and medium enterprises.

"If the government is really serious about empowering the indigenous people economically, it would be better for it to empower small and medium businesses because 99 percent of those companies are owned by indigenous people," Sofyan said.

He said the government had been campaigning about the urgency of empowering small and medium enterprises. "But that's still limited to statements, not actions."

Many small and medium enterprises still faced difficulties getting bank credit although the government had assigned commercial banks to allocate 20 percent of their outstanding credits to them, he said.

"What we need is a real action -- not a partisan policy -- which benefits deprived people," Sofyan said.

During a House Budget Commission hearing Monday, the chamber's chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, suggested drafting a new economic and political policy to propel indigenous people into the economic mainstream.

He said Indonesia needed such a corrective policy to reduce the imbalance in the economy. Indonesians of Chinese origin, who make up less than 5 percent of Indonesia's 200 million people, control more than 60 percent of the economy.

An affirmative action program was needed to prevent potential racial tensions which could be set off by large wealth gap between the majority and the minority, he said.

Aburizal cited Malaysia's New Development Policy -- formerly known as New Economic Policy -- as an example of a deliberate affirmative action program to drive indigenous Malaysians into economic power.

Sofyan said the idea of affirmative action programs to empower indigenous people was out of date considering Malaysia, the only country to implement such a program, had abandoned it.

"Why should we propose to the government to adopt such an unpopular program?" Sofyan said.

He said Malaysia launched its New Economic Policy in 1970, one year after the country was rocked by race riots.

"Indonesia has its own economic policy and problems. It's not necessary for us to copy Malaysia's way of handling its problems," he said.

Sofyan, who is of Chinese decent, said such a partisan policy could encourage capital outflows, especially if bureaucrats implemented the policy overzealously like they did in Malaysia.

Morgan Guaranty estimated that between 1976 and 1985, M$30 billion from Malaysia's Chinese community left that country.

Malaysia changed the New Economic Policy with the New Development Policy in 1991, which replaced numerical targets with general guidelines. (rid)