RI MUST TAP ECONOMIC BENEFIT FROM APEC EVENTS

BY Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Sept 28 (Antara) - Indonesia must exploit the potential of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), with its 21 economies controlling about 50 percent of world trade and contributes 56 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).          "For Indonesia, APEC is an important economic grouping. It has to increase, or at least keep its exports to the region from decreasing," Trade Deputy Minister Bayu Krisnamurthi said on Friday.          The value of Indonesia's exports to countries grouped in APEC reached US$140 billion, accounting for about 69.8 percent of total Indonesian exports.  "Yet, we still suffer a deficit of US$7 billion in our trade with them. We should take this into account," noted Bayu.          Since the APEC region hosts 40 percent, or about 2.8 billion, of the world population, about 55-60 percent of the world trade volume is controlled by APEC economies.          Thus, Indonesia, which is hosting the APEC leaders' summit in Bali next week, should benefit from the regional economic cooperation and work to guarantee that its economic growth is maintained.          "We should assure that it will help us maintain our economic growth. We should continue to play an active role so that policies to be taken during the APEC talks will live up to our interests," Bayu Krisnamurthi said.            The trade deputy minister said, however, that APEC still had a challenge to overcome, particularly the income gap among its members. "The economies of APEC members all experience growth. Small countries experience growth and so do big ones, so that a gap remains among them, and this should draw our attention," he said.          According to Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, agricultural packages should be prioritized on the APEC summit agenda, and the gap between the different interests of developed and developing nations should be narrowed.         "We believe (the discussion of) agricultural packages is important because of the different interests of developed and developing nations, especially India and the United States," the minister stated.          The minister also highlighted two other important trade issues that should be addressed: trade facilities and efforts to enhance the market in the least-developed countries (LDC packages). All three issues are on Indonesia's agenda for the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting scheduled for the end of 2013.          The other important issue that should be discussed in the APEC forum is the development of cooperatives and small and medium scale enterprises.          Therefore, in this case, Indonesia will explore cooperation between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in various fields with a number of  APEC economies.          "We are going to make use of October's APEC Summit in Bali this year to explore SME cooperation with six APEC economies, namely Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States," Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry spokesman I Wayan Dipta said last month.          Wayan noted that Indonesia was considered successful in applying entrepreneurship growth programs as the "best practice" to be offered to the APEC economies.          "We want to explore the bilateral cooperation with the six APEC economies and to learn from their success in developing small and medium enterprises in particular sectors," Wayan said.          In the meantime, M Taufik, the deputy for business network and marketing affairs of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, said that cooperatives and small businesses must benefit from the APEC summit.          "APEC should bring benefits, both in terms of the direct and long term, to cooperatives and small and medium scale enterprises," Taufik said.          He also called on cooperatives and small businesses to actively participate in the APEC event in an effort to expand their business networks and penetrate world markets.          He said his ministry alone had organized a special exhibition for small businesses as part of its activities for the APEC event. It was organized in Bali, which will host the regional economic grouping summit.          "We hope the event would maximally be utilized by small businesses," he said.          He added that the ministry of cooperatives and small and medium scale enterprises had also hosted a meeting of the ministers of cooperatives and small businesses from APEC economies earlier in the month.         "Through the exhibition, we want to show the world that products made by our small businesses are able to compete in the world market. This is being held to coincide with international events, such as the APEC summit, APEC's small and medium enterprises ministers meeting, Women's APEC Encounter and the Miss World contest in Bali," he noted.            According to Indonesian Cooperatives and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises  Minister Syarifuddin Hasan, APEC economies actually have agreed to encourage small and medium enterprises to increase their capability to expand the export market for their products.         "All APEC members have agreed to establish cooperation and exchange experiences in improving the quality and productivity of small and medium enterprises so they will continue to make progress," he said.          At their four-day meeting ending earlier this month, APEC ministers reached a number of crucial agreements. "At this moment, all APEC members are drawing up their own policies to boost the flow of exports from small and medium enterprises," he said.           In the meantime, Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry spokesman I Wayan Dipta pointed out that with the United States, Indonesia would explore cooperation about expanding a high business ethics culture, as well as the use of advanced technology.         "With the US, we want to learn about high business ethics culture and how to apply it in Indonesia," Wayan said, adding that Indonesia would also explore cooperation with Japan in the application of One Village One Product (OVOP).          Additionally, he said Indonesia will explore cooperation in the fields of small and medium business with Taiwan, retail with Singapore, green business technology with South Korea, and market network expansion with Malaysia.      This will allow small and medium businesses, including those in Indonesia, to have a greater chance to export their products to other countries or businesses and, from outside, businesses will be able to export to Indonesia.      Minister Syarifuddin underscored the need for small and medium enterprises to increase their exports, as Indonesia was now suffering from a deficit in its overseas trade.          "We hope that exports of small and medium businesses will continue to increase in the future," he said.***3*** (T.A014/INE/H-YH  ) (EDITED BY INE)    .     (T.A014/A/BESSR/A/Yosep) 28-09-2013 17