Third Largest Democratic Process in the World
VIVAnews - The parliamentary Elections have just ended and the final result will be announced in early May. On July 9, 2009, the presidential Elections will be held. Amidst sharp maneuvers that the politicians set out, who does the business community respond over the matter? VIVAnews journalist Wenseslaut Manggut interviewed Deputy Head of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, Anindya N Bakrie, to get a clearer picture.
How does the business community respond over the recent parliamentary Elections?
As a process of mass democracy, the 2009 Elections are quite successful. In fact, a report says that this is the third largest democratic process in the world, involving more than 170 million voters and taking place in more than 500 polling stations. Regardless of the final voters list issue, the recent elections were quite in order taking into account the campaigning period as well as the voting processes. Therefore, the business community can still go on. In fact, several domestic-retail-based businesses recorded increase concerning people's consumption rate.
What does the business community expect of the elections winner?
I believe that the most important principle in the business world is social and political stability, policy as well as legal certainty. Indonesia is at least more stable than its neighboring countries. With regard to policies and law, I consider the issues as 'work in progress'. So improvement is required. However, there has been a betterment, and we all feel it.
What exactly does the business community expect of legal issues?
The point is that the business world is ready to collaborate with those leaders in the legislative and executive bodies. But we are hoping that various regulations can be prepared, made clearer and adjusted especially those concerning with the business world. It is aimed at avoiding overlaps between the central and regional government as well as government agencies. If no coordination is set up, there will be uncontrolled regulation implementation which will affect the economy negatively such as high-cost economy, lower investment and weaker competing power.
What is the expectation of the business world toward the presidential candidates?
We are in the middle of the globalization. The business world must improve Indonesia's competing power. As far as business community is concerned, we are urged to build an effective and efficient business system operation. Therefore, fine business environment is important for both investment and business development.
As a Deputy Head of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce on Information Tehnology, what should in your point of view the government do to patch up the sector?
Information technology, is a crucial element in developing a nation. As an industry, IT, or in broader sense, telematics, is an industry whose value has exceeded more than Rp 200 trillion per year. It is higher than what the automotive sector can give. At a time when the nation's economy is declining, the industry still grows by 10 percent, in 2009. The cause of this is that the industry combines infrastructure and creative industries.
In addition, the industry is also an important catalyst in helping people improve. The simplest example of this is that people have become connected. Such archipelago as Indonesia requires it. Another contribution of the industry is value-added services like e-learning, e-payment, e-government and so on.
Special intention from the nation's leaders toward the industry will affect the industry in a positive way. It is not only concerned with the economic growth, but also completion of various social issues the nation is dealing with. The International Telecom Union had stated that every one percent improvement of telephone use will boost the GDP of a country to three percent. In fact, several countries apply telematics as a way to push their development, education, health and other public services. The breakthrough is possible because certain innovation in technology has made technology cheaper. Two third of the Indonesian citizens under 35 years of age are said as part of creative population. Taking the great population for granted, Indonesia may become a potential market for encouraging the development of various infrastructures as the backbone for telematics.
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Translated by: Bonardo Maulana Wahono
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