The World Bank Report

The World Bank Report

The annual World Bank Report on Indonesia's economy, usually
issued one month before the annual meeting of Indonesia's
creditor group in July, has always been eagerly awaited by
journalists in the capital city. The reason is quite obvious.
First of all, the Washington-based bank is perhaps the most
apprised among the existing multilateral financial institutions
of even the innermost pulses of the country's economy.

Even though the bank's influence on Indonesia's economic
policy is no longer as strong as it used to be from the late
1960s into the 1970s when the bank's resident chief virtually
played the role of a" shadow" economics minister, the bank's
report has remained the most comprehensive and independent study
on the country's economy. After all, the World Bank also has been
the opinion leader among Indonesia's sovereign and multilateral
creditors who annually make loan commitments to the government's
investment program.

And because the bank's annual report has always been treated
as a confidential document, the report has become the target of
hot pursuit among the print media, notably the foreign press, who
seem to make an exciting contest out of who will be the first to
leak some" juicy" excerpts from the bulky document. Obviously,
given the limited space of newspapers and in view of the way the
Indonesian government reacts to criticism, it is the critical
elements that are seen as most newsworthy. Hence, there has
always been the risk that things will be quoted out of context,
or out of proportion, or that emphasis will fall on the
"critical" rather than positive assessments.

In the middle of 1993, for example, the most-widely quoted
portion of the World Bank's report was the section that
criticized the high-tech industrial development policy. That
unintentionally pitted State Minister for Research and Technology
B.J. Habibie against the bank.

Such representation of the World Bank's report by the mass
media not only treats the good economic analysis unfairly but
also often "irritates" Indonesian officials who -- given the
internationally-praised steady, robust growth of the country's
economy over the past three decades -- are naturally proud of no
longer have to accept "I told you so" sermons.

Nonetheless, the World Bank's annual report actually serves
Indonesia quite well because it acts as a timely, independent
publication of Indonesian economic and financial data in the
correct perspective and complete context.

In fact, in view of the globalized financial and capital
markets, the summit meeting of the Group of Seven economic
powerhouses last week cited such timely publication of economic
and financial data as crucial for improving the early warning
system regarding financial crises, such as that suffered by
Mexico early this year.

Moreover, we think, most of the contents of the report are not
completely new, especially to those who regularly read Indonesian
newspapers. For example, the readers of this column would not
likely find the excerpts from the World Bank's report on the
foreign debts and on cartel-like and oligopolistic practices, nor
on the questionable manners in which politically influential
businessmen win government contracts, to be new issues. What
makes the excerpts from the report particularly "juicy" is the
assumed confidentiality and the high level reputation of the
World Bank itself. Thus, it seems attractive for the local mass
media to use the bank's report for strengthening the same
messages they have often carried.

Because the World Bank itself adopted information guidelines
last year that make its economic and sector reports and loan
information available to the public, it is now high time to
improve the manner in which the annual report is disseminated.

The bank apparently considers it the right of Indonesia's
creditors to be the first to get the annual report as it will be
the main document to be discussed at their annual meeting.
However, delaying the distribution of the final report to the
public until after the meeting of the creditor group (the
Consultative Group on Indonesia) will continue to cause
misrepresentation, unfair accessibility and unnecessary debates
and irritation. This is because it is certain that some copies of
the pre-publication version of the report, which are distributed
to the creditors' representatives ahead of time, will continue
to fall into unauthorized hands.