U.S. trade, investment mission comes to Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): A delegation of American companies arrived here yesterday for a three-day mission to help build confidence in Indonesia's battered economy.

The mission, organized by the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, will also visit Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Manila to consult with officials and private sector colleagues on the region's economic troubles.

"The mission is intended to build confidence and determine areas where the U.S. private sector can play a positive role in assisting the region as it works toward implementing reform and resuming economic growth," the council said in a statement.

The region has fallen into economic turmoil and has slowed down due to a loss of investor confidence in its economic prospects following the devaluation of Thai baht on July 2, 1997. The region is now undergoing massive economic reforms to return to the path of high growth.

"The council's members believe that the region will see a return to economic growth, and are committed to maintaining a presence and acting as a positive force in the process of economic recovery," it said.

Council members include more than 300 leading U.S. companies doing business in the nine-member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The council said it had long supported ASEAN's work toward regional economic integration, namely the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which will come into being in 2003.

It said the mission would meet with officials responsible for the development and implementation of AFTA.

"These 'nuts and bolts' measures create the kind of attractive business environment that will help draw in the foreign capital and technology that will support a return to economic growth," the council's president, Ernest Z. Bower, said.

"AFTA makes companies think of ASEAN as a regional market, rather than a series of segmented markets, and will allow them to make investment decisions accordingly.

"Thus, ASEAN becomes more competitive vis-a-vis other developing markets in the global competition for foreign capital," Bower said. (rid)