Indonesia to develop horticultural zones to boost exports

The government is set to develop horticultural zones to support agrobusiness and serve the domestic market, an academic said in Denpasar, Bali, on Thursday.

“Efforts have been undertaken within the last five years by way of rehabilitating existing plots and developing new ones,” Dean of Agricultural Technology of Udayana University in Bali Bambang Admadi said, as quoted by Kompas.com.

The efforts, he said, were spearheaded by the Agriculture Ministry’s Horticulture Directorate.

Bambang said there were no less than 1.7 hectares of horticultural land already being developed in 66 regions accross Indonesia.

“The results have so far been positive. We have had a steady 10 percent increase of fruit harvest per year,” he said, adding that such growth had allowed the country to produce 14,313,101 tonnes of fruit per year.

Vegetables followed closely with an average growth rate of 5.4 percent or 9,011,417 tonnes annually.

Despite positive trends, Bambang argued that the level of the country’s production was still not sufficient when compared to the exports of neighboring countries.

“The value of Indonesia’s current horticultural export is merely 0.6 percent with a total output of 345,642 tonnes,” he said. “This pales in comparison to other countries in Asia and Australia.”

Source : The Jakarta Post

Kalla: Trade is key in developing Indonesia

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has sought to give the Indonesian entrepreneurial spirit a boost, for the sake of the country’s development.

“The profession of merchant is very important for Indonesia,” Kalla told some 1,200 participants of the Minang Merchants’ Meeting in the West Sumatra provincial capital of Padang on Saturday.

“This kind of meeting is very important to exchange the entrepreneurial spirit. Without such spirit, Indonesia will not rise after 10 years of dependence on goods imported from countries such as China and Japan and foreign loans.”

Merchants’ meetings are also being held among the ethnic Acehnese and Bugis traders and businesspeople.

Kalla said no nation could develop itself by being dependent on other nations.

“If we (the government) were so proud in the past of getting foreign loans, it is time to change this,” he said.

“We should be proud of paying our debts, instead.”

Kalla himself comes from a trading and business family.

“Becoming a merchant requires the spirit and intellectual ability,” he said.

The first Minang Merchants’ Meeting was held last year. Participants were involved in dialogues with successful businesspeople from West Sumatra.

Indonesian Employers Association chairman Sofjan Wanandi, who was born in Sawahlunto, said trade figures were low because business networking in Minang was still weak.

He said what was needed was to develop synergy among businesspeople and to improve the quality of businesses.

West Sumatra Governor Gamwan Fauzi said there had been many inquiries about how much new investment there was in the province after the first meeting was held last year.

“I said that new investment in West Sumatra is my responsibility and not that of the merchants’ meeting,” he said.

“As of October there was about Rp 15 trillion (US$1.53 billion) in loans disbursed for this year, while there was only Rp 12 trillion last year.”

By Syofiardi Bachyul Jb
Source : The Jakarta Post

Responsible motorcycle business

The motorcycle business continues booming in Indonesia, with producers like Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha aggressively promoting their products by showing off their technological advances and the affordability of their prices.

Buyers are lured with easy credit schemes. The government, including the Jakarta city government, is happy because the motorcycle boom provides lucrative revenues.

But do we ever stop to think that there is a heavy price we must pay for the flourishing motorbike market?

The public, including the riders, take most of the cost. If there is no action to address transportation problems, the growth in the number of motorcycles will be unstoppable. As long as the City does not have adequate public transportation systems, like the proposed mass rapid transportation system (MRT), this gloomy picture will continue, if not worsen.

The Jakarta City police say the number of motorcycles has reached 3.5 millions out of the total 5.7 million vehicles in the capital. This is a 300 percent increase in the number of motorbikes during the last four years.

According to data issued by the city police, 88 percent of more than 3,500 traffic accidents across the capital – killing some 720 people and wounding more than 4,000 — involved motorcyclists, last year alone.

Minivan Mikrolets and medium-size Metromini bus drivers and owners complain they are facing extinction because of their passengers moving to motorcycles.

Look at the TV or print media advertisements. In their forceful advertisements, motorcycle producers rarely educate their customers on how to ride safely, or how to abide by traffic regulations. They promote speed, quality and the stylish mode of their products.

But how about safe driving? Perhaps the motorcycle producers have done more than we realize to educate riders and to help government in reducing traffic accidents. Perhaps they keep a low profile so only relatively few people know about their corporate social responsibility programs.

We do appreciate the strong presence of the vehicle industry because it generates major job opportunities, directly or indirectly. The taxes it pays to government are also an important source of revenue. We just want to remind the industry that it would be to the common good if it could play a greater role in sharing the burden of preventing, or mitigating, the negative impacts of vehicles on the streets.

We also owe a debt to motorcycle owners, because every year they pay their vehicle tax. With their vehicles they can access lower cost transportation for their daily lives. However, the behavior of many motorists on the street is worrying. This is especially so because the road capacity of Jakarta can’t accommodate the rising number of vehicles.

In a city with seriously chaotic traffic conditions like Jakarta, are the growing number of motorcycles part of the solution or part of the problem? The answer is both, depending on who answers the question and how we see transportation issues.

For many urban workers, motorcycles are part of the solution because with them they can cut their transportation costs, which is urgent following the fuel price increases. But the expansion of the motorcycle fleet has sparked new problems for urban traffic in general, including an increase in accidents, worsening traffic congestion and increased traffic violations.

The Jakarta city administration has considered various solutions to address this problem, including providing motorcycles with special lanes or by reinforcing policies introduced last year, prohibiting motorcycles from entering certain roads.

We endorse any plans to address the problems arising from the motorcycle boom. However, any solutions should comprehensively address the whole transportation problem in the capital.

Unfortunately, the growing popularity of motorcycles is leading to new problems.

The data on traffic accidents shows they have reached an alarming level. Motorcyclists are considered to be the most reckless road users. This is partly because there is no special training for driving motorcycles.

Meanwhile, driving licenses are easily obtained without taking into account the riding skills of the applicants. Many unlicensed riders, including under age children, are often seen driving motorcycles on the streets. Such practices not only endanger motorcyclists themselves, but also other road users.

The most important solution is that the city has to go ahead with its plans to improve public transportation services and provide alternatives to the general public. This is the only permanent solution to the terrible traffic problems in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, motorcycle producers, who have gained windfall profits from a booming market, need to bear in mind their moral and social responsibilities to the public good and help share the burden of resolving transport problems.

Source : The Jakarta Post

Commentary: Ramadan, more about extravagance than frugality

For Trade Minister Mari Pangestu, Ramadan means extra work. Her office has to ensure the nation has enough supplies to meet the rising demand for basic foodstuffs, from rice and vegetables to sugar, flour, cooking oil, eggs, chicken and meat.

Over at Bank Indonesia, central bank governor Budiono is calculating how much more money to put into the system to ensure there is enough to meet the extra demand characteristic of this time of the year while still keeping inflation under control.

The result, no matter how hard these two officials try, will still be an increase in the consumer price index, making it higher than in any other month (taking out the inflationary impact of the rises in domestic fuel prices).

The public has come to accept, though grudgingly for some homemakers, that the prices of most basic foodstuffs are higher in Ramadan. Economists call this phenomenon a seasonal fluctuation.

Despite the efforts of Mari Pangestu and Budiono, at the end of the day, there is still too much money chasing too few goods every time Ramadan comes around. This has been the pattern every year now.

All this means that, compared with the rest of the year, we Indonesians eat much more food during the holy fasting month.

This is probably an understatement. Given that the government increases the supply of basic foodstuffs significantly and still consumer prices increase faster than normal, Ramadan is a time when most of us are stuffing ourselves like there’s no tomorrow.

Something is not quite right with this picture.

Ramadan, as we are taught from childhood, is supposed to be a time for frugality. We are fasting in order to feel and appreciate what it is like to be poor, to go without food and drink, not for days on end like what real poor people endure, but just for a few hours, between sunrise and sunset.

It is by being hungry that one supposedly has a spiritual experience during Ramadan.

Logically, the demand for food should be lower, and inflation should therefore be the lowest of the year, not the highest.

Assuming that everyone strictly observes fasting during the daytime (there is no reason to doubt it), this raises the question of how much can you really stuff yourself between sunset and sunrise?

Granted, some of the expected higher inflation is triggered by rising demand for the big feast as we celebrate the victory of good over bad (or evil) at the end of Ramadan.

Some of the extra demand for money can be accounted for by the fact that workers are getting their annual bonuses this month, and many urban dwellers celebrate Idul Fitri in their rural home villages. Besides, Ramadan is also the time when we feel more generous and charitable than usual, hence the extra spending.

But it is also true that during Ramadan, we are eating more food that is rich, in terms of sugar and calorie content. Not surprisingly, for many, Ramadan is the time when they put on a few more kilos and add a few more inches around the waist.

For many Jakarta Muslims, it has become a trend to break the fast together (buka puasa bersama) in restaurants. During weekdays, it’s with colleagues and business relations. At weekends, it’s with families.

Eating out, which is a sign of growing prosperity, is more intense during Ramadan. Just try getting a table at your favorite restaurant, whether on weekdays or weekends. Or visit hotel cafes that serve all sorts of buffet, and see how some people take “all-you-can-eat” literally.

For those in the restaurant business, this is the time to make a killing. And of course it’s all halal. Imagine serving all those religiously inspired people. God must love them all.

Is this too cynical a view of Ramadan in Indonesia? Maybe.

But the growing prosperity for some of us, prompted by commerce, has turned Ramadan from a month of frugality to a month of extravagance. And this is happening even when one out of two Indonesians are still living in poverty.

And no one, not the least the government or the religious leaders, seems to have any qualms about the waning spiritual message of Ramadan to want to try to change it.

Happy Ramadan.

Endy M. Bayuni
Source : The Jakarta Post

Indonesia Among the 13 Biggest Internet Users

The Minister for State Enterprises Sofyan Djalil said that internet users in Indonesia reached 13 million people. This makes Indonesia the big 13 internet users in the world. However, 70 percent of the users are in large cities. The computer use as one way to access information is still very low, he said in Bali, Tuesday (28/8).

The minister said this in his speech opening the summit for Ministers of Telecommunication and Information Technology for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jimbaran, Bali. The meeting aims to intensify cooperation in spreading information technology among Southeast Asian Nations.

Sofyan Djalil said the equal spread of information technology in every Southeast Asian Nation is expected to stimulate technology growth and the economic competitive power in the region.

Technology development in Southeast Asian Nations, he said, has been growing slowly. However, several efforts have been made such as improving the network for internet and banking access. The high-speed telecommunication access should be ASEANs priority, he said.

The Director for International Relationship at the Communication and Information Ministry Ikhsan Baidirus said there has been a technology gap between city and rural areas. Around 40,000 villages in Indonesia do not have proper communication facilities. He expected the summit will find a way to make it equal in the Southeast Asian Nations including Indonesia. (TEMPO Interactive)

Govt probes alleged dumping cases

The Indonesian Anti-Dumping Committee (KADI) is investigating two alleged incidents of illegal importing involving Thai chemical substance producers and Chinese detergent manufacturers, an official has said.

KADI head Halida Miljani said Wednesday the committee had begun investigations into alleged imports of detergent ingredient Sodium Tripolyphosphate (STTP) from China after receiving complaints from local STTP producer PT Petrocentral.

STTP is a water softener used to increase detergent purity levels.

“Petrocentral told the committee it has been suffering losses since the Chinese-based products entered the market,” Halida said, refusing to disclose the value of the losses.

The committee is scheduled to wrap up investigations next month, she said.

“We have to ensure that all data is valid so that we are ready to face any complaints by the Chinese producers.”

Dumping is an international trade term for when a country exports goods to a country at a substantially lower price compared to those produced in the recipient country and in sufficient bulk to jeopardize local industry.

Dumping is countered by stamping imported goods with tariffs and quotas.

The committee has also received protests from manufacturers of domestic Bi Axially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP), which is used to make plastic wrapping materials, including Saran Wrap.

“Three companies’ factories have accused several Thai producers of dumping their BOPP products in Indonesia,” she said.

The three firms are PT Trias Sentosa, PT Arga Karya and PT Titan Kimia Nusantara, KADI data shows.

“We have been examining the case since May and are scheduled to finish it by next year,” Halida said.

In February, the committee finished investigating a dumping case involving hot rolled coils sent from China, Russia, Taiwan and India.

Since 1990, Indonesia has been the victim of 173 dumping cases.

The figure places Indonesia six on a list of countries with the most cases, after China, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, the United States and Japan, according to February 2008 World Trade Organization data.
(Source : The Jakarta Post)

RI’s nanotechnology to be inspired by physics conference

By Erwida Maulia

Indonesian researchers can access the latest research in particle physics from world-class scientists gathering for the 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, which opened Tuesday.

Around 100 participants, including 88 top scientists from prominent universities in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world, are taking part in the five-day conference hosted by the University of Indonesia at its campus in Depok, West Java, 20 kilometers south of Jakarta.

Among the participants are representatives of the United States’ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Japan’s Tokyo Institute of Science and Kyoto University, China’s Nanjing University, Korea’s Aerospace University, Malaysia’s University of Malaya and the University of Indonesia.

Scientists from European countries are also attending, including some from Germany’s University of Bonn, the Netherlands’ University of Groningen and the United Kingdom’s University of Glasgow.

In total, 24 countries are participating in the conference, Scientists will be sharing the latest research on the development of theoretical predictions and experiments in the few-body system, a basic branch in physics which deals with the interaction between two or more particles.

Indonesia’s State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman said in his opening speech advances in the knowledge of few-body problems would be very helpful in the development of nanotechnology, which has been increasingly popular globally.

Nanotechnology is an applied science which aims to manipulate matter on an atomic and molecular scale, generally 100 nanometers in length or smaller, and develop materials or devices for that scale. Examples include the manufacture of polymers based on their molecular structure and the design of computer microchip layouts based on surface science.

Kusmayanto said Indonesia was currently still in the microelectronics phase, and was aiming to get to the nanoelectronics phase. He said the international conference was therefore highly relevant for the country.

“These world-class scientists will be sharing their recent research results here, which our students and lecturers can benefit from. This face-to-face meeting enables us to get the information faster than waiting for their work to be published, which may take two or three more years,” he said.

Cochair of the conference’s steering committee, Terry Mart, said the conference could help Indonesia demonstrate to foreign scientists that “our scientists do exist”.

Terry, who is also a University of Indonesia lecturer, said the conference was also expected to help the university — ranked 395 in The Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings in 2007 — upgrade its ranking.

The first Asia-Pacific Few-Body Problems conference took place in Tokyo in 1999, the second in Shanghai in 2002 and the third in Thailand in 2005.

Indonesia was elected as the host of the fourth conference, winning out over India and Kazakhstan. (Source : The Jakarta Post)

40% of all drugs in RI may be fake

By Novia D. Rulistia

Think twice about where you get your medicine these days, as it is estimated some 40 percent of all drugs in Indonesia may be counterfeit.

The International Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Group (IPMG) announced Wednesday the figure was nearly double last year’s, when counterfeits comprised 25 percent of all drugs in circulation.

IPMG anti-counterfeit drugs committee head Thierry Powis said the increase was driven by higher demand for cheaper drugs coupled with weak legal measures tackling the fakes.

Some of the country’s top pharmaceutical companies have increased their selling prices by an average of 15 percent since early this year as a result of rising industrial fuel prices and raw materials.

Last year, Powis said, the country was estimated to suffer a loss of US$500 million from the purchases of counterfeit drugs.

“Counterfeit drugs do not only harm consumers, but also the country and manufacturers. Comprehensive public education is needed to cut the demand chain,” he said.

The WHO estimates some 200,000 people die every year because of counterfeit drugs.

Justisiari Perdana Kusumah from the Indonesian Anti-Counterfeiting Society said most fake drugs in the country were imported. The drugs include both prescribed medicines and over-the-counter drugs such as those for pain and weight loss.

In Indonesia, such fake drugs can be easily found in Jakarta, particularly in drugstores in the Pramuka, Grogol and Rawa Bening markets.

The government issued a ministerial decree last year on public drugstores in a bid to stop the spread of illegal drugs and expired drugs in some trade centers.

The Justice and Human Rights Ministry’s director for brands Ahmad Hossan said the ministry was in talks with related departments on the revision of the Intellectual Property Rights Law to also help stop the distribution of illegal drugs.

He said the law would later include stricter sanctions on violators and streamlined procedures for producers to patent their brands and packaging. (The Jakarta Post)

Schoolbooks on the Web

From August this year, school textbooks will be available for students through the Internet. This is a commendable idea.

When students can download their textbooks from one of the following Web addresses: http://bse.depdiknas.go.id , www.depdiknas.go.id , www.pusbuk.or.id and www.sibi.or.id, this is a sign of progress.

Everyone agrees that the National Education Ministry is facing an uphill battle to achieve its objectives. To create equal opportunities for school students in the largest archipelagic country in the world represents an enormous challenge. Students will soon be able to download 49 textbooks, at least in theory. The number will soon be increased to around 300.

The book shortage is only one of the problems confronting national education. The same goes for teachers and even school buildings.

More than 40 years ago we used to send teachers to work in Malaysia. Now, there are primary schools in remote regions with only one teacher. This is not encouraging for a country whose quality of education was once an example to its neighbors.

The ministry’s move is both visionary and a breakthrough. In the past publishing textbooks for schools, a lucrative industry when there are more than 40 million school students, was often marred by corruption, which sent book prices soaring and made the cost of education more expensive.

With only one year of shelf life for many educational books, parents found it hard financially to buy new books for each of their children, every year.

Now the government has extended the shelf life of textbooks to five years and has put them in digital form on the Internet.

The problem, more than two years after its introduction, is that students are still having problems downloading the textbooks, especially those living off the island of Java.

Lack of access to Internet connections — a communications infrastructure problem — is one reason. This may be linked to a limited development budget in some regions.

In Central Kalimantan, some students have to travel 125 kilometers to find the nearest Internet cafe, as reported by Kompas last week.

Or, if there is a connection, it takes ages to download big documents. One teacher said one book can contain more than 500 megabytes of data. This has prompted teachers to propose to the ministry that it should be possible to download books chapter by chapter.

It is sad that such a good idea should be held back by such obstacles. Our information technology connection quality is in a sorry state compared to Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand.

The Singapore government has a plan to wire the whole island in the near future.

In India, farmers make use of the Internet to check everything from agricultural prices, to the weather and market trends.

Or we can look south to Australia where, remote learning (by radio) was introduced successfully in the 1970s, even before the Internet age. The country has much in common with Indonesia, as far as vast distances and remote areas are concerned.

This shows that there are ample examples of good practice around us.

Part of the problem in Indonesia lies in the monopoly-like practices of telecommunications companies. If they could open up, things would definitely be better.

We can get around poor infrastructure, thanks to technological innovation. Some big private companies are doing just that. They have state-of-the-art IT because the technology is there.

It is now possible to go virtual without using wires.

This is one possibility that the ministry can explore.

Another one, which could lower costs, is to insert textbook data into tiny memory chips that cost only US$8 (about Rp 80,000) each.

The memory chips, in turn could be downloaded by students onto CDs, which will be cheaper still. All of this can be done without Internet connections.

Or the ministry can cooperate with cellphone companies. Each school student or teacher with a cellphone could get a free memory chip. Today, the country has more than 80 million cellphone users.

This would go well with the One Laptop For Every Child concept that will soon be coming to Indonesia. (The Jakarta Post)

Commentary: Indonesia, a nation in a constant state of denial

By Endy M. Bayuni

Few people saw the irony when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this month told giant oil companies operating in Indonesia “to share the pain” and divide some of their recent windfall profits with the country, which has been struggling with soaring world oil prices.

With prices in world markets reaching US$130 a barrel and counting, it is easy to assume that these foreign companies that operate most of Indonesia’s big oil fields are flush with unexpectedly huge profits. One does not need to be a math genius to see just how much money is being reaped if the average production cost for extracting a barrel of oil in Indonesia, according to one industry estimate, is at between $6 and $7 a barrel.

What the President did not say, and what the media reporting on his meeting with foreign oil executives failed to point out, is that it is not the oil companies alone that are reaping huge profits from the dramatic increase in oil prices from $80 a barrel just a year ago.

With an average 85:15 split on oil produced in Indonesia in favor of the government, the biggest beneficiary of the present situation in world oil markets is our own government. One estimate puts the government’s daily share of the Indonesian oil output at around 600,000 barrels a day, after paying the oil contractors their share of the profit and recoverable production costs.

While President Yudhoyono was within his rights in asking the oil companies to share the burden of the country in dealing with higher oil prices, the unanswered question is what his government has done with its own share of the oil windfall, which is large by any measure.

The answer is simple: they have been squandering it, or more precisely, they have been burning the oil money like there is no tomorrow. Most if not all of the oil money, even after last month’s 30 percent average increase in gasoline prices, has gone up in smoke, in the form of subsidies on gasoline prices.

The chief beneficiary remains the wealthy middle class, people who drive their own cars and people who light up their houses as much as they can. They get the lion’s share of the money. The poorest of the poor only now are getting some of that money after the government introduced a direct cash assistance program to help cushion them from the increase in gasoline prices. The smugglers, the hoarders and the thieves who cash in on the huge margin between domestic and international prices are also on the take, but theirs is another story.

The rest of us get a little share of the oil windfall here and there.

With oil prices unlikely to ease in the near future (some even now predict they will go past the $200 a barrel mark by the end of this year), the government is still looking at paying around Rp 200 trillion ($22 billion) in fuel subsidies for the 2008 fiscal year.

It is safe to assume that there won’t be any further increases in gasoline prices, no matter what happens to prices in world oil markets, given that the country (or rather President Yudhoyono) is facing an election year in 2009. Going by his administration’s thinking, the government is prepared to sacrifice other spending, including on education, health and defense, as well as on badly needed economic infrastructure, to keep gasoline prices at their present levels.

In fact public sentiment won’t have it any other way. Just look at the student demonstrations, statements from politicians of all colors as well as editorials and press commentaries. Everyone seems to agree that Indonesia cannot afford to increase domestic fuel prices again.

While we are admittedly flush with oil money, we seem to be burning it as fast as possible, which explains why we never seem to see the money in the first place.

What the nation seems to have forgotten completely (or some of us conveniently choose to forget) is that technically, every drop of oil we produce is actually burned here, and much more. Indonesia has been a net oil importer (meaning that we import more than we export) for some years now thanks to a combination of rising domestic production and declining output.

Yet, we have continued to behave like it was still the 1970s, when we were still exporting a reasonable amount of crude oil, so much so that we were an important member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and even at times chaired the oil cartel. The fact that we remain a member of OPEC today (the government is only considering quitting the organization) actually speaks volumes of our ambivalent attitude toward the current state of affairs when it comes to soaring oil prices.

This is a nation that seems to be in a constant state of denial; a nation that continues to live in its past while at the same time squandering its future; a nation that seems unwilling to confront the truth and unwilling to change to the new realities.

As we gear up for a presidential election next year, no one in the political elite is heard to be advocating another increase in gasoline prices. Not the politicians, not the bureaucracy, not the academics, not the media, not the NGOs and not the students.

The question is not so much how long can we keep this game up, as how high must oil prices go before we wake up to reality. Is it $150 a barrel, $200 a barrel? I hesitate to guess. (The Jakarta Post)