Tunky urges big firms to invest overseas

JAKARTA (JP): The government has urged big Indonesian businesses to invest overseas to build and strengthen networks to penetrate foreign markets.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo said yesterday that investing abroad would automatically create export opportunities.

He cited Morocco as an example of a possible investment place which could be used by Indonesian businesses as a springboard into the increasingly-closed European market.

The European Union has accorded Morocco's products, with 60 percent local content, duty free entrance into its market.

"If we invest in Morocco, it means we open up opportunities to enter Europe duty-free," Tunky said at an Indonesian-Morocco business forum.

At the forum, Indonesian and Morocco officials signed agreements on investment and air transportation which are expected to augment trade between the two nations which is less than $50 million a year.

State Minister of Investment Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo suggested earlier that Indonesia form a board to coordinate local businesses investing overseas.

But the chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Aburizal Bakrie, said such a board would burden businesses with another bureaucracy.

In addition, Aburizal said many businesses did not want to be overruled by anybody with regards to investing abroad.

"Businesspeople do have their own business judgment about which investments are feasible and which are not. So, it is not necessary to govern them," Aburizal was quoted by Antara as saying.

He said local businesses would invest abroad more efficiently and flexibly without such a board because they would make their decisions unhindered.

He said the time was ripe for Indonesian businesses to invest abroad because they had developed the capacity to do so.

"Yes, it is about time for our businesspeople to invest abroad. But it is not necessary for it to be coordinated," he said.

Speaking at a recent House Budgetary Commission hearing, Aburizal said what Indonesian businesses really needed was the government's moral and lobbying support for overseas investment.

He cited the United States government as one which lobbied other countries, including Indonesia, on behalf of its companies.

"Helping businesspeople to invest abroad should not be a taboo anymore for government officials because other countries have done it for a long time," he said.

Property tycoon Ciputra agreed and said big businesses should pioneer foreign investment to help medium and small companies penetrate export markets.

"Large local businesses should not contest in the domestic market anymore. They should not become only local winners, but global ones," he said.

Ciputra said the domestic environment had made it possible for local businesses to invest abroad.

"Investing abroad is no longer considered capital flight, and people investing abroad are no longer branded as not being nationalistic. So, it is good for us to start investing abroad to tap export markets," he said. (rid)

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