West Bengal chief minister seeks Indonesian investment

The chief minister of West Bengal in India, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, visited Jakarta from Aug. 24 to Aug. 26 to promote his province in Indonesia and to seek Indonesian investments. Bhattacharjee spoke to The Jakarta Post's Veeramalla Anjaiah on many issues relating to West Bengal, which has 80 million people and is ruled by a communist government. The following are excerpts from the interview.

Question: What is the main purpose of your visit to Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular? Answer: Our policy at this moment is to interact with all Southeast Asian countries and also East Asia, like Japan and China. Among the Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia is important for us.

Before I came here, we already had contacts in some big Indonesian companies like Salim Group, Bakrie Group and Ciputra Group. They (companies' executives) had visited Kolkata several times. Benny S. Santoso (Salim Group's executive director) came to Kolkata almost three times. All these people decided to start some projects also in West Bengal. There are two important projects: One is Ciputra Group's township project near Kolkata. The other one is Salim group's automotive, chiefly motorcycle, manufacturing plant.

Aside from Indonesian companies, we also have contacts in Singapore. At least three Singaporean companies came to West Bengal. I came here from Singapore. We also have some contacts in Thailand and Malaysia.

Since Indonesian companies are taking interest in West Bengal and they have already started some projects, therefore I should respond. I decided to come here to mobilize and contact some other Indonesian companies. We welcome Indonesian investments in West Bengal.

How would you rate the investment climate in West Bengal?

In the past, there were some apprehensions about West Bengal. Now, those apprehensions no longer exist.

For example, Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI) in West Bengal is the highest in India. Four years back I visited Japan. Mitsubishi Chemicals came to West Bengal and established a big plant.

Why is West Bengal a favorite destination for foreigners? It's because of our locational advantage, because of our natural resources, human resources and finally, political stability.

I try my best with other colleagues to prove that we are an investor-friendly government, not only in our talk but in our actions.

Foreigners are coming, even Americans are coming to West Bengal. American companies like IBM, Pepsicola have already established plants in Bengal.

It's an indication that foreigners also feel now the West Bengal is their favorite place.

What about the red-tapism in your state?

After 1992, the Indian government started this liberalization process and things got moving. The situation is not like it was previously. As far as our state is concerned, I personally believe that foreign companies in West Bengal are protected. We have to take their needs into consideration.

Once again, Mitsubishi's case is a good example. They made a profit in just three years. Now they are planning to establish another plant.

Yours is a leftist government, which is mainly supported by workers, farmers, students and intellectuals. If any labor dispute arises in a foreign company, how will your government deal with the issue?

Our involvement in trade unions is an advantage. The majority of workers are in support of this government. And we are trying to change their mind-set. I tell them, look this is a new situation. We need FDI; we need infrastructure.

Issues like production, productivity and the quality of production are not the headaches of the management alone. You have to share them. Otherwise, industries will collapse and jobs will be lost. Now things have changed.

For example, there are so many Information Technology (IT) companies in West Bengal. Not a single working day has been lost due to strikes or unrest since their establishment.

It's a strange situation. You represent a communist party but work with the Indian Congress Party as well as foreign businesses, including the American capitalists. Could you please throw some light on this?

You see, communists. We can't speak anymore about old dogmas. The world is changing . We are also changing.

Look at China. The situation is completely different if you compare it to before 1978. The Chinese realize that their position in the world has changed. So, they changed their policies accordingly. Deng Xiaoping used to say "We learn truth from the facts, not from books.

We learned from our experiences in India and abroad.

We are functioning in a small area. India is a big country and West Bengal is part of India. We have to formulate new policies. We have to reform our old policies. Otherwise, we will not be able to survive.

And our success story is our land reforms. The majority of the land belongs to poor farmers. Thanks to this, our production of rice, fish, vegetables, potatoes and fruits is the highest in India.

Based on this success in the agriculture sector, now we want to focus on industrial sector.

How do you see globalization?

Globalization is a must. Nobody can stop it. And we have to admit it. We want globalization but not at the cost of our interest, developing countries' interest. We want a level playing field, otherwise it will be one-sided. Only developed countries will benefit from it at the cost of Third World countries. That is not good. We cannot avoid this globalization process. We must participate in it.

Next year, your government will face assembly elections. How do you see the future of West Bengal?

With the strong support of farmers, workers, students and intellectuals, I am hopeful that we will win the elections next year. Because political stability is a must. So there should be continuity in government policies.