Welcome investors

Welcome investors

This week, Jakarta will be busy hosting a meeting between
Indonesian and Malaysian businessmen. Seventy businessmen will
not only visit the country but also look into business
opportunities that could be explored together.

Vice President Hamzah Haz expressed the hope last week that
local businessmen would take advantage of such a meeting. This
cooperation is useful for all parties involved and will ease the
burden of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

Hopefully, this could be realized, as some important issues
relating to the management of state assets have not yet been
solved, namely what percentage of the assets local businessmen
could control and how to invite foreign businessmen to invest
here.

Economic growth in Malaysia has increased steadily after the
government gave special attention to improving the economic
conditions of indigenous Malaysians by giving them facilities.

Here, there is no such attention. The government, on the
contrary, always says yes to foreign demands. South Korea and
Thailand do not do that. They were able to revive their economy
by strengthening their peoples' sense of nationalism.

Now, the best way to optimize all this, is through a synergy
between all parties. Hopefully, the arrival of the Malaysian
businessmen would serve as a momentum for such a synergy, and
would be followed by other members of ASEAN. And in the future,
we will build this region into a single economic entity just like
the European Union.

-- Republika, Jakarta