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.