Pergerakan Indonesia
Nyatakanlah cah’yamu
Di tengah kelamnya Bumi Persada
Satukanlah s’luruh jiwamu
Patahkanlah semua belenggu
Satukanlah kepal tanganmu
Jangalah gentar dan ragu hatimu
Kini saatnya pembebasan
Kini tiba saatnya
Terbit fajar untuk kita
Cukup sudah tangis dan darah
Mari kobarkan semangat kita
Dengarlah panggilan Bangsa
Seluruh rakyat semesta
Yang di desa dan di kota
Marilah rebut kedaulatan
Bersama kita pasti
Gapai cita-cita
Pergerakan Indonesia
Maju dan berjayalah
Saat hati telah capai ma’rifat
dan kejujuran telah mampu
jernihkan sikap.
Hanya keberanianlah yang sanggup
meyakinkan bahwa kita telah berbuat.
Saatnya kejujuran memimpin negeri ini.
Saya baru saja mendapatkan data yang sangat lengkap tentang arus minyak nasional yang terinci. Semoga kian menambah pemahaman kita tentang posisi kita dalam perminyakan: minyak mentah dan BBM. Konon, Pertamina "gundah" kalau makin banyak orang tahu tentang ini. Silakan kunjungi http://faisalbasri.blogs.friendster.com/ARUS%20MINYAK%202007.pdf
Faisal Basri and Gatot Arya Putra
Indonesia’s economic problems have reached alarming levels and efforts to solve them have led to improvements in certain sectors. But problems in many other sectors are growing more sophisticated because they have never been addressed, while new problems emerge, making them more complex.
Since the start of the economic crisis in 1997, Indonesia’s economy, besides suffering from permanent output losses, tended to grow at a lower rate annually — below 5 percent per annum.
Low economic growth has been followed by trends of increased unemployment and poverty. Open unemployment increased from 4.7 percent of the total workforce in 1997 to 5.4 percent in 2001, even though disguised unemployment decreased from 37.5 percent to 30.6 percent.
An increase in open unemployment indicates higher unemployment among the middle-class workforce, while a decrease in disguised unemployment shows that employers have been forced to maximize job loads — or that workers, to cope with increased living costs, were forced to get other jobs.
Either way both efforts appear to have increased income — as indicated by the doubling of commercial banks’ consumer credits from Rp 40 trillion by the end of 2000 to Rp 80 trillion as of the end of 2002. But unfortunately, the increase in workers’ incomes were not accompanied by improvements in their productivity. Their productivity even declined.
The low annual rate of economic growth, accompanied by the decline of productivity, has worsened our global competitiveness. Growth competitiveness, for example, declined in rank from 62 among 80 countries in 2001 to 67 in 2002, while the country’s microeconomic competitiveness fell from the 59 to 64, according to the Global Competitiveness Report.
Our competitiveness was worse than Asian competitors, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
The low growth competitiveness was contributed by low technology index (rated 65), public institution index (77) and macroeconomic environment index (53).
Indonesia would be able to improve competitiveness if its companies are restructured. But corporate restructuring has thus far been hampered by government policies related to labor, the capital market and the banking industry.
A government policy discouraging dismissals, for example, makes it difficult for companies to improve efficiency. A policy where creditors cannot force inefficient debtors to be declared bankrupt also hampers efforts to boost efficiency. Hence such policies burden the banking industry and also the economy.
While the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) has access to restructure companies under its supervision, it has been too slow, as indicated by the low level of sales of the credit assets under its management.
Out of the sold credit assets, a substantial portion — worth more than half of banks’ total capital — has been bought again by the banks through third parties. Because the credit assets are of low quality, the purchasing banks will likely run into difficulties if the credit assets go sour in the future.
The restructuring of commercial banks, leading them to have a low ratio of loans against deposits, is also heading to an unhealthy banking industry. Their average loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) of around 44 percent as of last December indicates that they are not effective in extending credits to businesses. Such a low LDR will make it very difficult for the economy to recover its high growth.
The low LDR has been caused by seven factors. First, banks are trapped to become traders of mutual funds consisting of recapitalization bonds — whereas the total amount of such bonds accounted for 32.59 percent of commercial banks’ total assets by the end of last year.
Second, because commercial banks remain dominantly managed and owned by the same people since before the economic crisis, their operational behavior has never changed. While such banks used to channel major portions of their credits to sister companies, they will therefore find difficulties in efforts to rapidly expand their credits to independent entities, at a time when supervision of legal lending limits is tightened.
Third, expanding the demand for new credits will be hampered by the slow recovery of the real sector.
Fourth, companies’ preference to raise cheaper funds from the bond market affects demand for credits from banks, whose intervention is worried by debtors.
Fifth, the higher concentration of the banking industry — marked by the 70 percent domination of credit extension by 22 banks — hampers credit expansion to larger numbers of borrowers.
Sixth, Bank Indonesia’s plan to include market risks in the calculation of the minimum requirement of 8 percent capital adequacy ratio will hamper credit expansion.
Seventh, the requirement that banks should lower their non-performing loans to a maximum of 5 percent of total credits will force them to be more cautious in channeling credits.
Slow growth in new credit extension was apparent over the past few years. In 2001, for example, new credit extension by banks grew by 11.9 percent and in 2002 by 14.4 percent, far lower than the annual growth rate of 26.05 percent between 1995 and 1997. Moreover, out of the new credits extended in 2001, 38.5 percent came from the acquisition of credit assets from IBRA. The contribution of IBRA’s credit assets to commercial banks’ new credit extension rose to 51.3 percent in 2002.
Such a slow credit growth will not be able to help facilitate the economy to grow at a level similar to that before the crisis. The banking industry also faces high risks because about half of their new credits are of high risk.
However, commercial banks showed little improvement in their net interest margins — from an average of 3.69 percent for all commercial banks in 2001 to 4.14 percent in 2002 (meaning that the margins grew by 12.2 percent). But the growth rate of banks taken over by IBRA and that of recapitalized banks were worse than the average growth rate of all banks.
The net interest margins of banks taken over by the IBRA averaged 4.2 percent in 2001 and 4.6 percent in 2002 (meaning that the margins grew by 9.5 percent), while those of recapitalized banks declined from 3.75 percent to 3.74 percent (decreasing by 0.27 percent).
While credits cannot help much to prop up the Indonesian economy, consumption plays its role in supporting economic growth, which is financially integrated. But we cannot rely on consumption alone because consumption in a financially integrated economy is usually supported by foreign debt, whose flow into and out of the country will influence the volatility of consumption. This in turn may cause fluctuation of growth.
A more consistent growth would be gained from the support of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the FDI inflow can only support higher growth if the country improves its human capital, the depth of its domestic money market, the quality of its governance as well as its macroeconomic policies.
To attract more FDI, the country also needs to liberalize direct investment before portfolio investment and bank loans, trade before the money market and the domestic money market before the external money market.
[Faisal Basri teaches at the School of Economics, University of Indonesia. Gatot Arya Putra is a former head of the planning division at IBRA. The above is abridged from the writers' presentation at The Jakarta Post's seminar on Strategy for Indonesia's Economic Development held on April 28.]
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20030507.F03&irec=2
Faisal Basri and Gatot Arya Putra
Indonesia’s economic problems have reached alarming levels and efforts to solve them have led to improvements in certain sectors. But problems in many other sectors are growing more sophisticated because they have never been addressed, while new problems emerge, making them more complex.
Since the start of the economic crisis in 1997, Indonesia’s economy, besides suffering from permanent output losses, tended to grow at a lower rate annually — below 5 percent per annum.
Low economic growth has been followed by trends of increased unemployment and poverty. Open unemployment increased from 4.7 percent of the total workforce in 1997 to 5.4 percent in 2001, even though disguised unemployment decreased from 37.5 percent to 30.6 percent.
An increase in open unemployment indicates higher unemployment among the middle-class workforce, while a decrease in disguised unemployment shows that employers have been forced to maximize job loads — or that workers, to cope with increased living costs, were forced to get other jobs.
Either way both efforts appear to have increased income — as indicated by the doubling of commercial banks’ consumer credits from Rp 40 trillion by the end of 2000 to Rp 80 trillion as of the end of 2002. But unfortunately, the increase in workers’ incomes were not accompanied by improvements in their productivity. Their productivity even declined.
The low annual rate of economic growth, accompanied by the decline of productivity, has worsened our global competitiveness. Growth competitiveness, for example, declined in rank from 62 among 80 countries in 2001 to 67 in 2002, while the country’s microeconomic competitiveness fell from the 59 to 64, according to the Global Competitiveness Report.
Our competitiveness was worse than Asian competitors, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
The low growth competitiveness was contributed by low technology index (rated 65), public institution index (77) and macroeconomic environment index (53).
Indonesia would be able to improve competitiveness if its companies are restructured. But corporate restructuring has thus far been hampered by government policies related to labor, the capital market and the banking industry.
A government policy discouraging dismissals, for example, makes it difficult for companies to improve efficiency. A policy where creditors cannot force inefficient debtors to be declared bankrupt also hampers efforts to boost efficiency. Hence such policies burden the banking industry and also the economy.
While the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) has access to restructure companies under its supervision, it has been too slow, as indicated by the low level of sales of the credit assets under its management.
Out of the sold credit assets, a substantial portion — worth more than half of banks’ total capital — has been bought again by the banks through third parties. Because the credit assets are of low quality, the purchasing banks will likely run into difficulties if the credit assets go sour in the future.
The restructuring of commercial banks, leading them to have a low ratio of loans against deposits, is also heading to an unhealthy banking industry. Their average loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) of around 44 percent as of last December indicates that they are not effective in extending credits to businesses. Such a low LDR will make it very difficult for the economy to recover its high growth.
The low LDR has been caused by seven factors. First, banks are trapped to become traders of mutual funds consisting of recapitalization bonds — whereas the total amount of such bonds accounted for 32.59 percent of commercial banks’ total assets by the end of last year.
Second, because commercial banks remain dominantly managed and owned by the same people since before the economic crisis, their operational behavior has never changed. While such banks used to channel major portions of their credits to sister companies, they will therefore find difficulties in efforts to rapidly expand their credits to independent entities, at a time when supervision of legal lending limits is tightened.
Third, expanding the demand for new credits will be hampered by the slow recovery of the real sector.
Fourth, companies’ preference to raise cheaper funds from the bond market affects demand for credits from banks, whose intervention is worried by debtors.
Fifth, the higher concentration of the banking industry — marked by the 70 percent domination of credit extension by 22 banks — hampers credit expansion to larger numbers of borrowers.
Sixth, Bank Indonesia’s plan to include market risks in the calculation of the minimum requirement of 8 percent capital adequacy ratio will hamper credit expansion.
Seventh, the requirement that banks should lower their non-performing loans to a maximum of 5 percent of total credits will force them to be more cautious in channeling credits.
Slow growth in new credit extension was apparent over the past few years. In 2001, for example, new credit extension by banks grew by 11.9 percent and in 2002 by 14.4 percent, far lower than the annual growth rate of 26.05 percent between 1995 and 1997. Moreover, out of the new credits extended in 2001, 38.5 percent came from the acquisition of credit assets from IBRA. The contribution of IBRA’s credit assets to commercial banks’ new credit extension rose to 51.3 percent in 2002.
Such a slow credit growth will not be able to help facilitate the economy to grow at a level similar to that before the crisis. The banking industry also faces high risks because about half of their new credits are of high risk.
However, commercial banks showed little improvement in their net interest margins — from an average of 3.69 percent for all commercial banks in 2001 to 4.14 percent in 2002 (meaning that the margins grew by 12.2 percent). But the growth rate of banks taken over by IBRA and that of recapitalized banks were worse than the average growth rate of all banks.
The net interest margins of banks taken over by the IBRA averaged 4.2 percent in 2001 and 4.6 percent in 2002 (meaning that the margins grew by 9.5 percent), while those of recapitalized banks declined from 3.75 percent to 3.74 percent (decreasing by 0.27 percent).
While credits cannot help much to prop up the Indonesian economy, consumption plays its role in supporting economic growth, which is financially integrated. But we cannot rely on consumption alone because consumption in a financially integrated economy is usually supported by foreign debt, whose flow into and out of the country will influence the volatility of consumption. This in turn may cause fluctuation of growth.
A more consistent growth would be gained from the support of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the FDI inflow can only support higher growth if the country improves its human capital, the depth of its domestic money market, the quality of its governance as well as its macroeconomic policies.
To attract more FDI, the country also needs to liberalize direct investment before portfolio investment and bank loans, trade before the money market and the domestic money market before the external money market.
[Faisal Basri teaches at the School of Economics, University of Indonesia. Gatot Arya Putra is a former head of the planning division at IBRA. The above is abridged from the writers' presentation at The Jakarta Post's seminar on Strategy for Indonesia's Economic Development held on April 28.]
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20030507.F03&irec=2
A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Faisal Basri
The history of nations shows that progress is generally achieved by hard working and sacrifice. We can take much lesson from history as resources to sharpen wisdoms in stepping the life of state and nation in international relationship which getting more crowded and changing in a high intensity. But the past experience and successful story of a country can not be fully duplicated. All we can do is taking advantage of a success or failure experienced by other countries, and sequentially put it as a prescious resource to achieve our own dreams and desires, with our own formulas and models.
Science with its theories had been a foundation to reveal issues and seek answers. It should’ve been guidance and tool to explore the problems, instead of constrain of our mind. Consider that strategies and policies offered are full of norms values; we use a set of norms and values as it is considered more universal.
This paper is not intended to explain and answer all the problems faced by Indonesia in comparative perspective with neighbor countries – which must be very multi dimensions. This paper is aimed to present some burning issues which we consider basic and crucial. It is hoped that this paper can also motivate me to understand the complexity of development and enhance me to generate a more holistic ideas. We hope that Indonesia experience can be a precious lesson for all distinguish audiences who dreams of a justifiable and progressive Philippines.
Like the growth of any living creatures and anything which use a moving machine in general, the process of development is carried on in a pattern which looks like an S (capital letter) curve which inclined to the right. In the early phase, the growth is likely slowly and increasingly getting faster till it reaches a highest speed just like a taking off airplane. When it reached the highest speed, the growth will reach a stable speed, and gradually getting slowly. That is a roughly speaking of a pattern a “normal” development. The difference between countries with normal development is in this S curve, with its different slopes. Countries with slower development are illustrated by the S curve with flat slope, and progressive development are showed by S curve with a straighter slope (see pic. 1).
Some growths which don’t comply with normal pattern might look like “stairs” or a shattered s (lower case letter) which is discontinuum. The stairs pattern is occurred in a forced development or a “leap frogging” development, which doesn’t work in accordance with phases, occurred in an S curve pattern. This pattern takes place in Chine in Mao era which stir up a Cultural Revolution and in Iran in Syah Reza Pahlevi era which awakens a Revolution lead by Ayatollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, the shattered s pattern occurred in some countries where the development is not carry on smoothly for there are several turmoir and chaos just like what some countries had to deal in Africa and South Asia. Indonesia in Post-Independence era also faced with a discontinuum s pattern. Indonesia at least faced two of political turmoil. Firstly, a political outburst happened in the end of 1965-66, which followed by changing of the regime totally. The second turmoil was economic crises in 1997-98 which also followed by political turmoil resulting the downfall of President Suharto. The crises which were also affected some countries in Eastern Asian region smashed Indonesian economy in a worst situation, causing an enormous permanent output loss. Other countries which were affected by the same crises (Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia) was not as terrible as Indonesia and recovered more quickly, thus they only suffered temporary output loss or if so, they suffered only a relatively small permanent output loss.
At this point Indonesia is trying to awake. There are threads which have to be faced in the same times. The external environment faced currently is much difference with the environment in the beginning or New Order Regime. The future tends to be more unpredictable. Unlike what happened in the past, at least until 1980 decade, when the future can be predicted with a relatively high precision (a clear enough future), now we have to deal with an uncertain situation (true ambiguity). Changing happens from all over the world and emerges unpredictability.
We understand that changing is not merely emerging threads, dangers, and challenge, it also promising hopes and opportunities. For that reason, we don’t have to be afraid to cope with reality which getting more complicated and always changed. The changing of characteristic and nature of external environment can be a stimulation to make a consolidation instead. It also makes us more observant of any movement or changing that happened around us, from our nearest to the furthest environment.
The essence of development is human building or autonomic individual building, which enhance them to actuate all potencies they have optimally. From this stand point, it will emerge variety and specialization which will increase exchange or transaction activities. It will be a strong fundamental to generate excellent men as main resources to create national competitiveness in facing mondial competition. Transaction is no less than an implementation of human interaction with all varieties and potency they have. The difference is a reflection of human being – which distinguish them from other creature – with free will given by God, whereas the result of those transactions or interactions are described as social welfare as it promised by comparative competitiveness principles.
Social welfare is implemented through an achievement of justified prosperity. Democracy is the most important pre-condition to implement the justified social welfare. Development may not separate them but it has to enhance them built-in in every strategies and developmental policies instead. The New Order government put forward “economic development yes, political development no” jargon as it known in the development state perspective which is often practiced by authoritarian regimes in developing countries. The implementation reflected through the development trilogy (growth, stability, equity). The three factors were mixed in a discourse, which was economic discourse. Hence, it showed that political discourse is repressed.
The strong point of welfare building is supported by qualities of three pillars before it, which are: growth, stability, and efficiency. The fundamental of growth is the supply side where it existence is determined by three main factors, which are: capital, human resource, and technology. Those three factors are dissolved by business actors to run the production mechanism. They consist of small, medium, or big business actors. Their business construction can be cooperative, private, or state own enterprise (BUMN). The actors can be divided into traditional and modern sector, or formal and informal sector.
The economic profile and growth dynamics can be identified into sectors as it can be explored through structure of production of economy. Both of structure of production or business actor composition is changing in conjunction with the shifting of composition in production factors, the increasing of human resources quality, and the changing of technology.
A spatial analysis will complete the understanding of economy profile more comprehensive. From this analysis, it can be depicted the distribution of economic activities based on locations: inter-province, Java vs. outer Java, or west region vs. east region of Indonesia.
The increasing of growth ability needs a complicated and multi dimensions process. Therefore perspective of developing growth ability is always placed in the long term frame work. Or simply said, an effort to make a structural changing of sectors and spatial composition as well as the actors can not be done in a shortcut way.
The second pillar of welfare is economic stability. New Order regimes also emphasized on the importance of stability as it shown in the development trilogy, but it emphasized more on security stability. Factors that influenced the economic stability are generally classified in the demand side, such as: private consumption components, investment, government expenditures, export and import; and elements that interact through variables such as exchange rate, interest rate, and price. Those components and variables can be influenced in a relatively short time. Therefore he demand side is threatening in short time equilibrium.
The third pillar is efficiency, a process to determine whether interaction between supply and demand side occur optimal. Supply side will run with a strong fundamental if it based on comparative competitiveness pattern in order that it enhances efficient resources allocation. Meanwhile, in the demand side will show a dynamic profile and flexible in the time of changing which come from internal and external environment.
In order to make those three pillars resulted a strong economic construction, it needs an institutional arena which enable all the elements in the supply side interact in a harmonious rhythm. When harmony is determined by a conductor in an orchestra, then a harmony in every movement between supply and demand side and the interaction among them as a guarantee of efficiency is determined by signals which are revealed by the market. The market itself is an institutional arena.
As it said before, welfare has to be parallel and in tune with justice. The implementation of justice is also based of three major pillars which are: individual freedom, social order, and equity. Whereas institutional arena exist to assure the strenght of justice and good governance construction. If market is a the best vehicle to build a welfare construction, then a good governance is an skilled driver of the vehicle.
When the shape of those two constructions has been formed, there will be sinergy between individual and community interest. There will be no place for policies which is made in the name of nations but in fact it only covers individual interest as well as the contrary of it.
***
The question is: have Indonesian people actually taken benefit of a real freedom? According to freedom index calculation released by Fraser Institute (http://www.fraserinstitute.org) it revealed that Indonesia’s rank continuously decline, from 29th level in 1990 turned down into 42nd level in 1995. The next five years, in 2000, in reformation era, our level was not increasing, but it remained fall down to 77th level. The decline was continuing in the next year and reached the level of 91st.
The maturity in democracy is also questionable. Based on World Audit report in 2002 (http://www.worldaudit.org)
Is it right? It has to be admitted that in there are improvement in some cases. But the surge of destruction is stronger that it eroded fundamentals of state and nation. Freedom resulted from reformation movement is benefited for a small number of authority in executive and legislative body, both in central and regional level. Freedom for society in general is a pseudo freedom – a freedom that doesn’t set them free, or freedom without liberty. Million of people live under poverty line while the cost of education and health care are increasing. The line of youth population who seek the job is extended in employment market. Justice as a foremost pre-condition of the founding of a civilized nation is hardly ever found in daily life.
***
It can not be denied, the challenge for Indonesia in the future is how to put human as focal point of development. Three pillars which has to be strengthen are education, health care, and infra structure and information technology. Indonesia is very much left behind in these fields. The Government’s concern is remained a political rethoric.
The next challenge is how to implement a justice market mechanism. We understand that every political system needs a proper market mechanism based on civilized competitive values.
Market is not a one individual dimension. Neo liberalism emphasized one side only, which is market creating. Thus, it is not surprising if all they present are jargons such as liberalization, deregulations, and privatization which bring about market function merely as a market creator. While to operate a proper and justice mechanism, it also takes the other three pillars, which are market regulating, market stabilizing, and market legitimizing.
The role of market regulating function is to provide security network to assure there will be no unhealthy business competition, and prevent the monopolistic practices which erodes buying capacity of society and resulting deadweight loss, and erodes collusion practices done by a small number of big business actors.
The function of market stabilizing is to assure that market dynamics can suppress the uncontrollable fluctuation and volatility. Without market stabilizing function, it seems that small business actors will never be able to keep the production resoluteness a consumer will have to deal with an extreme uncertainty.
Market legitimizing needed in order to provide an access to enter the market and to obtain a social insurance for society in marginal groups if they have to cope with risks they can not bear themselves.
If market mechanism is supported with these four pillars, the social welfare definitely will be achieved and a system will last and continuously self reformed to comply with sense of justice and sense of equity.
***
Indonesia was in the 103 level of democracy rank. The decline of freedom index and democracy rank for the last decade is parallel with the deteriorating of corruption practice. The latest report of Transparency International (http://www.ti.org) put Indonesia in the 6th level of the most corrupting countries in the world.
HIS BEHAVIOR AND ECONOMIC POLICY
(Faisal Basri)
Probably Indonesia is the only democratic country of the world that bearing a President from a political party having only 11% of total parliament chair in the general election. The weakness of the President’s political basis is getting worse with the fact that he cannot grasp the military and bureaucracy as tight as his predecessor Soeharto. In the middle of the inexistence of majority party and the military and bureaucracy reposition are in proceed, the political balance as the result of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) general meeting last year was only an artificial and a short-term one. It was predicted that the “wild” political rivalry will keep adjusting towards a new and more stable equilibrium through political crystallization that reinstating the governing and the opposition political parties.
There are three other factors making the transitional process of the New Order autocracy regime to the more democratic regime have less developed pattern. First, the political party as a political machine has no power to activate a rational and institutional political dynamics. The personal of political elite is more obtrusive than the trait and the platform of the party itself. As the result, the course of the political development is hard to predict, creating high uncertainty in every aspect of life, including the economy, where the political maneuver tend to be personalized and emotional. Second, the consensus on several basic problems are still not achieved, such as the role of the state, ownership and the regional autonomy. The non-resolute view of those matters deriving protracted controversies on several government policies, such as on the IBRA’s (The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency) tackle of the productive assets, privatization process of several state-owned enterprises, and the direction of the fiscal decentralization. Third, the standing-strong old forces are still trying to retain their influence by using huge fund. The main cause of the third situation is the negligent of government to set a clear abut on matter and took a strong action on the past by truth and reconciliation process.
Facing these matters, it seems that the Indonesian transitional process will take a long time. The problem is how to set the uncertain process and squeeze the cost to its lowest level in the tolerable capacity absorption limit.
The basic question is: Is Gus Dur able to lead and manage the transitional process as required? To answer the question, we must consider the characteristics of Gus Dur, neutrally and honestly. We can view Gus Dur as an asset and a liability. At one side, Gus Dur had roles as the most acceptable figure in the presidential election in October 1999.[1] He also, in the relatively short moment, has succeeded in herding military personnel to stay out of political arena. And the last but not least, his international diplomacy that has been so active contribute to strengthen the position of the government in facing regional conflicts. In the contrary, Gus Dur has been a liability in the process of KKN annihilation (corruption, collusion and nepotism) and in the mechanism of decision-making process, including the economic one. His moves and statements tend to be a controversy, rendering a negative contribution to the most conducive climate of the market.
In such a fragile condition, there are not many choices to be taken. But the choices are not only to retain or to topple Gus Dur from his position. As long as the President is on the track of keeping the deepening and the consolidating of democracy, not breaking the Constitution and the State Guidelines, it is too risky if the short-term political agenda is toppling Gus Dur. Besides the way is questioned, the successor candidates of which the party elite are still busy with their own problems so that they will be facing the same problems as Gus Dur.
Such notion does not mean that Gus Dur is allowed to continue his leadership with business style as usual. Gus Dur himself must alter his attitude and behavior to hold the credibility of presidential institution.
Some groups said that Gus Dur takes inconsistent action and steps for many times. My personal opinion emphasizes a contrary view. If we go backward, the unoriginal Gus Dur supporters should have realized the behavior from the initial moment.[2] To some extent, we can say that Gus Dur is consistent with his inconsistency.
Several groups, especially those who launch sympathy to Gus Dur, try to make justification on every not-understandable Gus Dur move. They said that Gus Dur thought is lapse over time so that it is hard to understand by the common, even by politician. This notion is inappropriate, since the leader capability should have been at his ability to communicate his notion and idea either to common people or to politician effectively.
[1] I myself have an opinion that the most important thing is to keep the democratic process more constructive, that is by opening chances to the winning political party to take the initiative in doing a smart political negotiation. My apprehension is that the winning political party becomes the marginal party. Let the other unaccomodated parties in the Government take the initiative as the opposition. This is important to build a new and positive political cultures for the creation of check and balance mechanism. Unfortunately, the people’s trust to the parties has been ousted by using the religions epitomize and other sectarian issues for the short-term interest of the parties.
[2] The parties, or the elite of the parties, supporting Gus Dur have its own different motives. The PPP (Development United Party) had no other choice since its candidate, Habibie, has been ousted while they could not accept Megawati for gender reason. Other parties elite supported Gus Dur insincerely. They expected that before the election, Gus Dur would resign for the health reason, opening way for their own candidates. In the Islamic notion, it is an obligation to choose a leader with physical intact, neither physical “invalid” nor evenly blind.
(Summary Speech)
By Faisal Basri
From the historical perspective, in the colonialism era, Asian deindustrialization was due to the pooled effect of at least two factors. First, the unequal terms of trade and commerce that the colonial home countries imposed by force: competition from European manufactured goods on the Indian and Chinese markets had taken place in a context of free trade that was anything but free, since the colonies were compelled to open their borders unilaterally to European product without any quid pro quo. Second, Europe had acquired a decisive lead in technology: mechanization brought major increases in productivity, resulting in an explosive growth of manufactured goods with lowered production costs.
China and India have adopted a measured and gradual approach to liberalization in order to shift to more productive economies and pro big business approach. In the last decade investment in China generated a lot more growth than in India where average investment rate in China was 60 per cent higher than in India its growth exceeded that of India by a greater margin (10.1 per cent against 5.5 per cent). This relation appears to have been reversed in the more recent period as China deepened its integration into the global economy at a faster pace, and experienced a surge in inflows of FDI, an investment boom and rapid growth of exports and imports. Between 2000 and 2005, Investment in India has generated more growth than in China.
Growth miracles are a result of a dramatic shift towards more productive firms and better forms of industrial organization. These same types of situation also translate to India and China where India lead the market in offshored back-office services, but as a manufacturing center it lags behind China, Thailand, and the rest of Asia. With high-skill sectors accounting for almost 40 percent of the manufacturing output of India, it is in a good position to absorb some of that increase. The country offers abundant engineering and technical talent: every year, it produces 400,000 graduate engineers, second only to China’s 490,000. In a few important segments (such as customized performance chemicals, including advanced printing inks and adhesives), domestic demand is rising as well. In India only 1.2 million people hold engineering degrees—4 percent of the total university-educated workforce, as compared with 33 percent in China. Pooled with the generally low level of suitability among Indian graduates, this means that India could face an overall shortage of engineers in the next few years, with a particular squeeze in certain cities. Consider engineers. China has 1.6 million young ones, more than any other country we examined. Indeed, 33 percent of the university students in China study engineering, compared with 4 percent in India.
China’s pool of potential talent is enormous. In 2003 China had roughly 8.5 million young professional graduates with up to seven years’ work experience and an additional 97 million people that would qualify for support-staff positions. Just one-quarter of all Chinese graduates live in a city or region close to a major international airport—a requirement of most multinationals setting up offshore facilities. Raising the quality of China’s graduates will be a long-term effort, but even modest improvements would make a huge difference. If the proportion of Chinese engineering graduates who could work at global companies increased to 25 percent (as it is in India), from today’s 10 percent, China’s pool of qualified young engineers would be among the world’s largest by 2008.
The labour market problem in China, India and industrial countries cannot be solved by the expansion of trade liberalization through market integration and high economic rate of growth only but also originate primarily in macroeconomic and financial policies. More importantly, massive unemployment and underemployment in developing countries especially in Asia have their origins in structural weakness rather than market integration per se. Not only that, the role of MNCs in labour employment is only a tiny fraction of total labour forces, for example in China its only employ around four million worker and in India where employment in the entire IT services is only one million. Last but not least, the emergence of China and India (including Vietnam) has contribute to the main source of insecurity among workers in world including Asian workers as already indicated by widespread global unemployement and underemployment.
References
Engardio, Pete. 2007. How China and India are Revolutionizing Global Business. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Kelly, D.A. 2006. Managing Globalization Lessons from China and India. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Faisal Basri
Kompas, Senin, 16 Juni 2008, hal. 1 dan 15
Ada dua perkembangan terbaru yang luput dari pemberitaan. Pertama, neraca perdagangan untuk pertama kali setelah krisis mengalami defisit pada bulan April 2008, yaitu sebesar 524 juta dollar AS. Penyebab defisit adalah perpaduan antara penurunan ekspor dan peningkatan impor, baik migas maupun nonmigas. Penurunan ekspor terutama disebabkan oleh kemerosotan ekspor kelompok barang lemak dan minyak hewan/nabati, khususnya minyak sawit (crude palm oil).
Kedua, defisit perdagangan bahan bakar minyak (BBM) selama empat bulan pertama tahun ini melonjak sangat tajam. Pemburukan defisit neraca perdagangan BBM yang tak terkendali sudah berlangsung selama lima tahun terakhir. Pada tahun 2002 dan 2003, defisit masih sekitar 2 miliar dollar AS. Pada tahun 2004 naik lebih dari dua kali lipat menjadi 4,2 miliar dollar AS. Lalu meroket menjadi rata-rata 8,5 miliar dollar AS pada tahun 2005 dan 2006.
Peningkatan masih berlanjut pada tahun 2007 menjadi hampir 10 miliar dollar AS. Selama Januari-April 2008 defisit BBM sudah mencapai 5 miliar dollar AS. Jika kecenderungan peningkatan pada empat bulan pertama ini berlanjut, defisit neraca perdagangan BBM bisa menembus 15 miliar dollar AS.
Tak perlu terjadi
Kedua contoh itu memang baru sebatas gambaran perkembangan satu bulan saja. Namun, kita sangat menyayangkan pemburukan tersebut karena sebetulnya tak perlu terjadi. Di tengah perkembangan global yang serba tak menentu, kita harus mampu memanfaatkan celah sekecil apa pun untuk memperkuat diri. Kita tidak boleh lengah sekejap pun.
Jika kita terus waspada, cadangan devisa tak perlu turun hingga hampir 2 miliar dollar dalam dua minggu terakhir, dari 58,8 miliar dollar AS pada posisi 23 Mei 2008 menjadi 56,9 miliar dollar AS pada 6 Juni 2008. Penurunan ini berpotensi memperlemah nilai rupiah—atau setidaknya menghambat penguatan nilai tukar sebagaimana terjadi di kebanyakan negara tetangga—sehingga turut menambah tekanan pada laju inflasi.
Laju inflasi juga sebetulnya masih bisa ditekan jika pengelolaan stok dan distribusi kebutuhan pokok dengan segala perangkat penunjangnya memperoleh perhatian lebih jeli.
Laju inflasi yang tergolong tinggi dalam dua bulan terakhir tentu bukan semata-mata karena kenaikan harga BBM. Sebelum harga BBM naik sekalipun, harga elpiji dan minyak tanah sudah ”menggila” dan menjadi penyumbang utama inflasi. Pada bulan April, misalnya, inflasi bulanan yang sebesar 0,57 persen, tiga perempatnya (0,43 persen) disumbangkan oleh kelompok pengeluaran perumahan, air, listrik, gas, dan bahan bakar.
Kejadian serupa berlanjut pada bulan Mei. Hanya saja, kali ini diperparah oleh kenaikan harga bahan makanan. Kelalaian dari sisi pengelolaan kebijakan seperti itulah yang menyebabkan inflasi inti (core inflation) di Indonesia sangat tinggi apabila dibandingkan dengan negara-negara tetangga.
Kesalahan fatal kita adalah dalam pengelolaan sumber daya alam. Impor BBM tak terkendali karena selama belasan tahun kita tak kunjung menambah kapasitas produksi kilang minyak. Akibatnya, kita kehilangan kesempatan meningkatkan produksi nafta (hasil sampingan dari kilang) sehingga kita tak bisa ”membantu” peningkatan daya saing industri petrokimia dan ribuan pelaku di industri hilir, dalam menghadapi pesaing-pesaing utama yang sedang mengalami tekanan lebih berat karena miskin sumber daya alam.
Industri manufaktur tertekan
Akibatnya, industri manufaktur tidak bisa memberikan sumbangan maksimal untuk memperkokoh landasan bagi pertumbuhan ekonomi yang berkelanjutan dan sekaligus meredam tekanan sosial. Sebaliknya, industri manufaktur terus mengalami tekanan dari segala arah. Dalam tiga tahun terakhir, industri manufaktur hanya mampu tumbuh 4,6 persen. Itu pun dengan kecenderungan kian melemah.
Kalaupun kita anggap era migas telah berakhir, sebetulnya kita masih memiliki banyak komoditas yang hampir semua menikmati booming, di antaranya karet, minyak sawit, kopra, kopi, cokelat, bubur kertas dan kertas, timah, batu bara, aluminium, nikel, tembaga, emas. Berdasarkan kajian Bank Dunia (East Asia & Pacific Update, April 2008), Indonesia seharusnya menikmati dampak peningkatan pendapatan neto positif dari perbaikan terms of trade selama kurun waktu 2004-2008.
Adalah kewajiban pemerintah dan kita semua untuk memastikan bahwa efek neto positif terhadap pendapatan tersebut terdistribusikan dengan lebih merata, terutama kepada kelompok-kelompok masyarakat yang kian tertekan akibat kenaikan harga makanan dan BBM.
Rakyat kian tak sabar lagi menunggu janji-janji muluk. Bukan sekadar bagi-bagi uang BLT atau kredit usaha rakyat (KUR) yang absurd itu, melainkan segala upaya yang bermuara pada peningkatan produktivitas jangka pendek hingga jangka panjang, terutama di sektor pertanian dan industri manufaktur, karena kedua sektor itu merupakan tumpuan hidup utama mayoritas penduduk Indonesia.
Pemerintah tak boleh berpangku tangan dengan sekadar lebih membiarkan mekanisme pasar bekerja. Saatnya untuk mengedepankan kebijakan industrial yang lebih progresif (active industrial policy) yang diintegrasikan dengan kebijakan energi dan kebijakan pertanian. Menyinergikan segala potensi sumber daya alam untuk memperoleh hasil yang optimal bagi sebesar-besar kemakmuran rakyat adalah wujud dari syukur kita atas karunia Tuhan yang dilimpahkan kepada bangsa ini.
http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2008/06/16/00120146/kejarlah.peluang.dan.jangan.lengah
