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April 2013Vol. 2 No. 4

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ENERGYMCC StartsActivities InIndonesia– Page A5

TRANSPORTATIONGovernment to Operate 24 New Airports upto 2015– Page B5

CULTUREOirata: A Local Language That Faces Extinction– Page C5

Hillary Clinton EE Mangindaan

Jababeka built cottages and infrastructure facilities so investors from Taiwan were able to survey Morotai."

Morotai Widely Opento Investors: Governor

Morotai is located in the Halmahera group of eastern Indonesia's Malu-ku Islands. Most

of the island's interior is rugged and covered in thick jungle. With abundant fishery resources and a well-preserved coral reef ecol-ogy, the island is regarded as a good place to develop the logis-tics and tourism businesses.

Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Syarief Sutardjo has designated Morotai as a model of maritime development that will help to accelerate economic area development bases on marine and fisheries. The Morotai island water is vast, consisting of 160 different fish species of signifi-cant economic value that allows

JAKARTA (TPP) – The Indonesian government plans to transform Morotai Island into a special economic zone housing an international harbor and an airport, with the aim of creating a regional transport center. The governor of North Maluku, Thaib Armaiyn, has urged all sectors to support the government’s plan by inviting more investments to Morotai.

al schools especially in marine, agriculture, and mining. Thaib admitted that they currently have mostly hard labor work-ers. The government still needs to produce more people with ad-ministrative skills to work in companies, he said.

Morotai is also known as be-ing part of world history because it was once the battleground be-tween Japan and the United States and Australia (Allied forc-es) during World War II. In 1943-1944, approximately 200,000 allied troops landed on Morotai.

Now, the remains of World War II at Morotai can still be seen; they are located either on land or deeply immersed in the ocean. The number of rel-ics is almost impossible to deter-mine, and the Morotai govern-ment intends to revive memories of World War II through histori-cal tourism.

The acceleration of Morotai development coincides with the success of “Sail Morotai 2012”, a maritime event that saw hun-dreds of yachts from many coun-tries take part.

High Hopes Pinned on New BI Governor

investors. Also, he added, regu-lations will be made to make in-vestors convenient to do busi-ness there.

“We open wide opportunities for investment, so existing regu-

The JCI is currently mov-ing within the last impulsive 5th wave, where the price tends to rise up, breaching the next potential psycholog-ical level which dwells on the level of 5,000. This should be the last significant upward movement before the JCI en-ters its bigger scale of correc-tion. We expect that the JCI will form its peak around the level of 5,017-5,044.

Fortunately, we can see that the effect of the com-panies' quarterly report re-lease has become the ma-jor impact of this month's euphoric action within the traders. Nevertheless, we

Astronacci Monthly Outlook

Pattern Formation. We are now witnessing the com-pletion of the 5th wave for-mation within the JCI's price actions.

Momentum Signal. Al-though there is still no sign of bearish divergence within the momentum indicators, we estimate that the next peak formation on our pre-determined time resistance will be accompanied by a po-tential divergence between the peak of the JCI and the momentum.

Time Forecast. The Plu-to Retrograde phase on 13 April 2013 should be a time resistance for our JCI.

er role in terms of maintaining monetary stability and keeping inflation in check so that it re-mains low. If not controlled prop-erly, those two things will greatly disrupt the nation’s macroecon-omy.

Inflation remains the key fo-cus at present though controlling it is not a problem that is solely tasked to the BI But the central bank is expected to be more pro-active in overcoming it.

Agus has said that his mon-etary position as BI’s governor would include a monetary policy mix that combine interest rates-related policies and macro-pru-dential measures, all of which would be applied to manage in-flation and stabilize the curren-cy.

He believes that Indonesia’s economy will face serious chal-lenges in the future. “The coun-try would continue to heavily de-pend on foreign flows to finance its current account deficit, with BI tasked to maintain a stable economic and financial environ-ment to avoid any unexpected capital reversals,” he said.

On the banking sector, Agus argued that reciprocity was “im-portant” to support the expan-sion of local banks overseas,

stressing the need for Indonesia to protect its banking industry.

He supported the clause in the Bank-ing Bill, which oblig-es all foreign banks operating here to be-come legal entities (PT), but rejected law-makers’ suggestions to limit the foreign owner-ship of banks to a max-imum 40 percent, from the current 99 percent.

All related parties have the same expectation for Agus as the new cen-tral bank gover-nor, which is to strengthen In-d o n e s i a ' s economy for the future.

31 business sectors to thrive and produce 148,473.8 tons of fish per year.

The development of Morotai has the full support of the cen-tral government and the pri-vate sector, one of which is Ja-babeka, the company that owns and manages Southeast Asia’s largest industrial estate in Cikarang, south of Jakarta. Ac-cording to the governor, the sup-port from Jababeka provides the initial momentum that saw capi-tal from western Indonesia to en-ter Morotai.

Thaib said, “Jababeka built cottages and infrastructure fa-cilities so investors from Taiwan were able to survey Morotai.” In-donesia and Taiwan will joint-ly outline and implement blue-

prints to develop Morotai's forest resources, fish farming and eco-tourism.

Meanwhile, Thaib ensures that the local government will support all investors that come

to Morotai. With the support of the central government, they plan to build better roads, elec-trical facilities, and harbors and also set up logistics services, air-ports and other means to attract

lations are possible to be revised in line with the latest develop-ments,” he stated.

The local government is also enhancing human resources quality by establishing vocation-

Thaib ArmaiynNorth Maluku Governor

The President Post/Rians Rivco

taining macroeconomic stabili-ty by monitoring inflation, giving a boost to economic growth, and keeping the exchange rate.

"Maintaining stability of the exchange rate is 'the homework' for the new central bank gover-nor as the turmoil in the glob-al financial markets is expected to continue," said an economist of PT Bank Mandiri Tbk, Destry Damayanti.

BI is expected to play a great-

As the former president direc-tor of state-owned Bank Mandi-ri, Agus believes that his back-ground as a banker will be helpful for BI as he can offer an insider’s perspective on how banks and the financial system work, as well as to ensure strong coordination between BI and the monetary authority unit, OJK.

National financial market players have high expectations for the leadership of Agus as the new central bank governor, one of which is to keep a stable ex-change rate of Rupiah. Pres-sure on the Rupiah has recently prompted foreign investors to di-vest their domestic portfolios in stocks and bonds in order to pre-vent losses.

The three main priorities to be expected from the new central bank governor includes main-

Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo has been elected as

Bank Indonesia’s (BI) new governor

by the House of Representatives

(DPR)'s Commission XI

for the 2013-2018 period. Agus will

replace the present official, Darmin

Nasution, whose term ends in late

May.

He believes that Indonesia’s economy will face serious challenges in the future. “The country would continue to heavily depend

on foreign flows to finance its current account deficit.

Agus Martowardojo

foresee this uprising momen-tum with the next cyclical phase of price actions. The Pluto Ret-rograde phase on 13 April 2013 will yield great impact by push-ing the market thoroughly fur-ther. We shall see many of our stock picks reach their pre-de-termined target price, and there-fore, the profits within our port-folio will be ripe enough to be harvested.

Price Analysis. The JCI will form its peak around the level of 5,017-5,044.

Government Considers Revising Price of Subsidized Fuel

The government is considering revis-ing the price of subsidized fuel due to its disparity with the price based on eco-nomic calculation. The current price is Rp 4,500 per liter (approximately $0.46) and is less than half of the prices of nonsub-sidized one. The initial budget for subsi-dized energy is Rp 274.7 trillion ($ 28.2 billion) and includes 46 million kiloliter of subsidized fuel. Yet, subsidized fuel is predicted to reach 51 million kiloliter of consumption this year and would cause a sharp increase of Rp 25.3 trillion ($ 2.6 billion) in the budget.

The decision will be announced his month, said a presidential staff for pover-ty reduction HS Dillon.

RI to Avoid Overhaul of Millennium Goals

Speaking in an event one day after the fourth High Level Panel on the Mil-lenium Development Goals (MDGs), President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stated that Indonesia would avoid a to-tal change of an existing MDGs frame-work in designing a post-2015 devel-opment agenda. He cited the three proposals he raised during earlier meetings of the panel: (1) Maintain-ing the existing MDGs framework that comprises eight targets and provide further details to each target, (2) Ex-panding the targets into nine or ten tar-gets, or (3) Designing entirely new tar-gets. He argued that it is better to opt for the first or second choice, as op-posed to the third, as he believes that

ending poverty should be maintained as priority in the post-2015 MDGs.

30 Cities Participated onEarth Hour 2013

Over 30 cities in Indonesia, a vast archi-pelago country, joined in Earth Hour 2013 on Saturday (March 23) at 8:30 pm, as the world's largest environmental move-ment to help save the planet.

WWF has been campaigning Earth Hour in Jakarta since 2009. In 2012, Earth Hour was considered the world's largest environmental campaign which was par-ticipated in by two billion people in 7,001 cities in 152 countries.

This year, 14 mayors and district heads as well as 5 governors across Indone-sia have been committed to joining Earth Hour.

HIGHLIGHTS

A2

Opinionwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

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The workers’ welfare has to be improved

simultaneously with efforts to improve

the business climate and by immediately

eliminating high cost economy.

Entrepreneurs should be able to improve

the workers’ welfare without reducing the

competitiveness of the products or services

they offer.

Reconciling the Interests of Labor and Corporationser stated that: “In a case where a company is declared bankrupt or liquidated according to the ex-isting law, the workers’ wage and other rights become debt and that it must be paid first”. Based on that, the company or employ-er and the government (state) have the responsibility to pay the workers’ rights.

The situation becomes dilem-matic when the rights which are guaranteed by both internation-al and national human rights regulations clashed with another law on bankruptcy and guaran-teed goods. The regulation which prioritizes paying tax debts (or those related to the state money) and payment to individual cred-itors didn’t emerge just like that. The regulation already exist-ed before this republic was born and it was regulated under the civil code and commonly used on credit guarantees both locally

of the ASEAN Blue Print 2012: ASEAN Single Market. The gov-ernment is responsible for find-ing or offering the best solution to overcome the so many prob-lems and to anticipate any po-tential that may disrupt the sta-bility of the national investment climate, especially those related to manpower.

Regional governments have taken a short cut with a popular policy that favored the workers without calculating how drastic the wage increase is. This could pose a problem for the national industrial sector and job oppor-tunities if it’s conducted with-out differentiating the business scale, type of business and the company’s performance. The increase in the provincial min-imum wage (UMP) by almost 50% will serve as a big blow for the micro, small, medium enter-prises (MSME) and the labor-in-

By Hendra Manurung* tensive manufacturing sector. Entrepreneurs who could sur-vive the condition might have to cut production cost by for in-stance cutting jobs or increase the prices of products or servic-es. At the end of the day, inflation and industries will not be able to compete both in the country and international market scene.

It’s in the government’s inter-est to end exploitation on labors as long as it’s still in line with the legal corridor and as long as it doesn’t hurt the national inter-est, including the long term eco-nomic plans. Let’s prevent 75% of around 110 million workers both in the formal and non for-mal sector from losing their jobs and incomes.

The formula which fully sided with meeting the workers’ wel-fare lies in Article 95, Clause 4 of the Labor Law. Article 95 (4) of Law No. 13/2003 on manpow-

and internationally.Aside from that, if the regula-

tions about the credit guaran-tee system, which covers cred-itors, is ignored just like that, it will shake up other systems such as the banking credit sys-tem, in which the disruption in the banking credit system will eventually hurt the investment climate.

Problems related to the im-provement of the workers’ wel-fare become worse with the court’s inconsistency in issu-ing rulings which names work-ers as the credits. In one ruling the workers are said to be spe-cial creditors who should be paid first. On another ruling, workers are said to be preference cred-itors, not special creditors. The inconsistency will certainly cre-ate uncertainties on whether the workers’ rights can be fulfilled as mandated under UDHR, ICE-SCR, 1945 Constitution, and hu-

man rights law.With regards to the imple-

mentation of the SJSN pro-gram, a more focused formula and mechanism is needed, one that doesn’t burden low-income people without eliminating the state’s obligation to provide the national guarantee. So, it’s clear that entrepreneurs would not be reluctant to pay the minimum wage of Rp2.2 million per month if it’s followed by improvement on skills, productivity and quality of the workers’ work ethics.

Keeping the interest of both workers and entrepreneurs bal-anced is a must to create har-mony, conducive industrial rela-tions and sustainable business to provide job opportunities.

*Hendra Manurung is a staff/lecturer of international relations at the International President University, Kota Jababeka, Cikarang Bekasi

L abor protests against low wages and the out-sourcing system oc-curred in almost every

city in the country. The workers also took to the streets to reject the Social Security Organizing Body (BPJS) and the National Social Security System Law (UU SJSN). The workers had threat-ened to stage demonstrations until President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issue a government decree in lieu of the UU SJSN.

The workers’ welfare has to be improved simultaneously with efforts to improve the busi-ness climate and by immediately eliminating high cost economy. Entrepreneurs should be able to improve the workers’ welfare without reducing the competi-tiveness of the products or ser-vices they offer, especially ahead

1971 1980 1990 2000 2010

Although Indonesia may face mounting

political pressures to restrict the inflow of foreign investment,

it is urgent that the country retain its right strategy to

promote and facilitate the increased inflow

of FDI.

reached the sizable sum of $23 billion in 2012. The non-oil sec-tor, with its weakening com-modity sector as its main pillar of strength, has not been able to compensate (even in a small way) the very large oil deficit.

Another critical area would be Indonesia’s budget which will most likely continue to suf-fer mounting pressures on ac-count of the huge energy subsidy which has its very sensitive so-cial implications. Apparently the government is presently still in a difficult position to come up with the right solution.

With tight financial situa-

By Atmono Suryo

Ease of doing Business Rank129th

Sumber: Wikipedia

It should be added that the country has developed a very large Middle Class. Estimated to be around 50-100 million, they are armed with better education and increasing purchasing pow-er. However, in the areas of doing business, productivity and com-petitive strength, Indonesia’s po-sition is still considered to be at a very low level.

During the period of good per-formance, not enough firm ac-tions have been taken to resolve the long-pending issues and to

improve the weaknesses of the economy. As a result thereof the country is presently caught in an unpleasant social situation. For example, the agriculture sector has been left in a state of neglect, causing shortages in the area of food supply for such items as rice, onions, soybeans, sugar, salts, fruits, and meat. At the same time mounting corrup-tion remains to be in full swing among some political elites!

EARLY WARNING BELLSARE RINGING

It is no surprise that an in-creasing number of early warn-ings, emergency signals and

noisy demonstration are com-ing out in greater force. On this score, the World Bank rightly is-sued some early warning signals in its Quarterly Report of March 2013, stating that Indonesia’s economic growth has remained steady but pressures are mount-ing. Such warnings should be seen as a real push for the coun-try to give its fullest attention to some unresolved policy issues.

Mounting pressures will oc-cur in the current account area, which already shows a widen-ing deficit of some $24.2 billion for 2012, compared to a surplus in 2011. This deficit is caused by the widening oil deficit which

Warning Signals in the Air, Mounting Pressures Ahead

tion, the weakening exports sec-tor and the widening current ac-count deficits, there is the need for a greater inflow of capital: FDI (foreign direct investment), Portfolio, IDA (international de-velopment assistance), others.

Developing countries are keen to attract foreign investments. Indonesia’s investment outlook, however, may not be as bright as expected. As the World Bank observes, there is the risk of reg-ulatory uncertainties and the increase of political noises, in particular as the 2014 elections is getting closer. These noises are scaring investors away as they often say, “Nothing is certain in this country”.

Indonesia should be aware that it is facing stiff regional competi-tion. As a result, FDI inflows into Indonesia remain modest com-pared to its peers such as Chi-na, Malaysia, Thailand and even Vietnam, as shown in Chart 2.

Although Indonesia may face mounting political pressures to restrict the inflow of foreign in-vestment, it is urgent that the country retain its right strategy to promote and facilitate the in-creased inflow of FDI.

The writer is former ambassador to the EU.

A PERIOD OF “GOOD SAILINGS”

After its economic down-fall on account of the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 it is right to say that since then In-

donesia has gone through a pe-riod of “good sailings”. Indonesia has been rated as one of the Top Ten Emerging Countries, elect-ed as a member of the G20 and considered to be on par with the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries.

The following data gives us a broad overview of Indonesia’s current situation:

Ekonomy of Indonesia

GDP growth 6.2%

Unemployment 6.56%

Total GDP$945 billion

GDP by sector Agriculture 15.3%

GDP Per Capita $4,943

Industry 47%

Inflation 4.61%

Services 37.6%

Exports $208 billion

External debt $223 billion

Imports $127.4 billion

Foreign reserves$110.30 billion

Main trading partners:Japan, China, USA, Singapore, India, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia

Chart 1. Sectoral GDP Share in Indonesia, 1971-2010 (%)

Source: BPS

Chart 2. Inbound FDI as share of GDP (%)

Source: CEIC, World Bank

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Agriculture Industry Services

8

6

4

2

0Brazil China India Indonesia Malaysia Mexico Thailand Vietnam

Percent Percent8

6

4

2

0

2002-2004 2005-2008 2010-2011

A3

KBRI Updateswww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

In order to promote tourism in West Java in Bangkok, Thai-land, the Indonesian Embassy in cooperation with the Depart-ment of Tourism and Culture, West Java Province, and Garuda Indonesia held West Java Nite at the InterContinental Hotel Bang-kok, on March 22, 2013.

The event was attended by In-donesian Ambassador to Thai-land Lutrfi Rauf, Nunung Sobari, Head of West Java provincial gov-ernment tourism department, I Wayan Subagia, General Man-ager of Garuda Indonesia Bang-kok, more than 100 tour opera-tors in Thailand, and the local media. This promotional activity is intended to attract more trav-elers to visit Indonesia, especial-ly West Java.

In his opening remarks, Am-bassador Lutfi Rauf said Indone-sia and Thailand have signed a

Embassy in Bangkok Holds“West Java Nite”

KBRI Bogota: Ambassador MulyaniVisits Rosario University

Hanoi hosted the 47th Ministerial Conference on Ed-ucation in South-east Asia with the

main subject of accelerated edu-cation for all, "Lifelong Learning: Vision and Policy" and the steps in building an ASEAN learning society in 2015 on 19–21March, 2013.

Lifelong learning has focused on comprehensive learning, in-cluding formal education, non-formal and informal, within and outside the school by means of the media, libraries, distance ed-ucation and online education, in-formation technology and com-munications and other qualified and supporting facilities.

A total of 200 delegates from 18 countries were present at the conference, including Pres-ident Truong Tan Sang, Depu-ty Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan, President of SEAMEO Pe-hin Abu Bakar, Minister of Ed-ucation and Training of Viet-nam Pham Luan Hu, and a number of ministers/ministers of education of 11 members of

Indonesia Received Award at the 47th Ministerial

Conference on Educationin Hanoi

SEAMEO, including Timor Les-te, 8 SEAMEO Associate Mem-ber Countries, 3 affiliate mem-bers of SEAMEO (International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), Tsukuba Uni-versity, and the British Council)), 20 SEAMEO Regional Centers and development partners, and representatives from UNESCO, UNICEF, ADB.

The Indonesian delegation consisted of the staff of the Min-istry of Education and Culture and the SEAMEO Center and the Indonesian Embassy in Ha-noi headed by Vice Minister of Education and Culture Profes-sor. Dr. Musliar Kasim.

At the conference, awards

www.kemlu.go.id

were presented to the out-standing staff from each SEAMEO Center. Within the cooperation framework of SEAMEO, Malaysia, In-donesia and Thailand gave awards to one of the staff at Bina Nusantara Universi-ty in Jakarta, Ms. Laily Alfa Citra.

A number of activities were carried out in the con-ference, such as the sign-ing of the SEAMEO Center on Lifelong Learning (CELL SEAMEO) doxument, the launch of SEAME College, and the confirmation of Great Britain as an Asso-ciate member of SEAMEO Member Countries.

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation in the field of tourism in 2003. Since then, various forms of co-operation have been implemented. Specif-ically to attract the Thai market to West Java, the historical as-pect has been highlighted by the fact that King Chulalongkorn made three Royal Visits to Java in 1870, 1898 and 1901.

Some places in West Java vis-ited by King Chulalongkorn in-cluded Bogor, Cianjur, Cipanas, Garut, Bandung and Sukabu-mi. According to records, one of the king of Thailand’s favorite places was the Bogor Botanical Gardens, which is said to have inspired the development of a similar park in Thailand.

West Java has a lot more to of-fer, from natural beauty, cultur-al attractions and food to fashion and shopping.

In his opening remarks,

Ambassador Lutfi Rauf said Indonesia

and Thailand have signed a

Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU) on cooperation in the field of tourism in 2003. Since then,

various forms of co-operation have been

implemented.

Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to Colombia Trie Edi Mulyani, accompanied by her staff on Economic Affairs, deliv-ered an academic presentation to 25 students of Diploma Program: “Asia and Transpacific Relation” sponsored by the University for the PROEXPORT (13/03).

Pro Export is a government institution responsible for the

promotion of foreign trade, in-vestment and tourism. The par-ticipants are senior and ju-nior analysts of PROEXPORT from Bogota, Medellin, Carta-gena and Pereira. The presenta-tion was opened by Doctora Do-ris Ramirez Leyton, the Diploma Program Coordinator of the Uni-versity of Rosario.

The main points of the presen-

tation and discussion, among others, are the status of bilateral relation between Indonesia and Colombia, the Indonesian eco-nomic growth performance, In-donesia’s potentials in terms of trade, investment and tourism, the Master Plan of Development Acceleration’s projects, the de-velopment of trade between In-donesia and Colombia, success

stories from several busi-nessman who are doing business with their part-ners in Indonesia as well as the facilitation services pro-vided by the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in the fields of trade contacts in order to bolster the econom-ic relation between the two countries.

The Indonesian delegation consisted of the staff of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the SEAMEO Center and the Indonesian Embassy in Hanoi

A4

Law & Regulationwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Development and Availability of Land

outlined what the public’s inter-ests are. But in reality, we still see clashes with local residents which hamper some of the gov-ernment’s public interest proj-ects.

Many of these social prob-lems stem from price disagree-ment in which the government offered prices below the public’s expectation. Eventually, many of these problems ended in vi-olence between the government and residents. It’s not easy to buy land that had been inhab-ited by the people for decades. One such example is the clash with land owners in Lemah Ireng village, Bawen subdis-trict, Semarang, on the Sema-rang–Solo toll road project. The government valued the land for only Rp 63.000 per meter while local residents said the price of land in the area ranged be-tween Rp250,000- Rp400,000 per square meter.

developer needs to provide an extraordinarily huge amount of capital to build these areas.

Therefore both the govern-ment and the private sector need to find an alternative solution to carry out the development with-out necessarily having to pro-cure the land. This can be done by offering the land owners to cooperate and to take part so that the development project can run. One example is a develop-er who wanted to build a super-block which required a big plot of land must first build a public facility in the form of road, open green area, and others to obtain the government’s permit. Rather than procuring land, the devel-oper could invite the land own-ers to join the project.

The illustration above shows that land owners A, B, and C joining the regional development

project that was proposed by the developer or the government.

The benefits from this cooper-ation scheme are as follow:• No land clearance is needed

Since no land clearance is needed, the potential for a so-cial conflict to break out can be avoided.

• Land owners can still own their land and they can even enjoy the bonus value from their landThe land still belong to the land owners and there is no transfer of ownership. The development of the new and grand superblock may even bolster the price of land by sev-eral folds and the land own-ers didn’t even have to spend a dime. They could still live there or partially rent it and enjoy some profits.

• The developer can gain some benefits from the new floorsThe new floors that were made became the developer’s right as the result of the investment it made. These floors could be rented and become a source of income for the investor.

Aside from those positive points, there are also several challenges in adopting this con-cept, which include:• The cooperation concept

which involves many par-ties becomes a breakthrough in land procurement but the concept has to be really clear and fair. This concept is some-thing new in Indonesia that it needs to be well socialized.

• Thetimeneededtofinalizeitis relatively longer because the number of parties that were invited to cooperate is quite

By Paulus Khierawan

large plus an extra time is also needed to socialize the pro-posed project.

This concept is worth trying given the high probability that prices of land would continue to rise in the future. The law on land procurement had actually included this concept in which article 36 stated that:

Compensation could be given in the form of: • money;• anotherland;• resettlement;• shareownership;or• another formagreedbyboth

parties.

Compensation in the form of share ownership is as follow:

“capital placement in the devel-opment of the public interest ac-tivity and/or management based on agreements by both parties”

Under this scheme, the gov-ernment has actually allowed land owners to cooperate in its proposed project. But what mostly happened all along is that the land procurement only offered cash as the compensa-tion. The government only want-ed a quick and easy solution. Af-ter the purchasing process, the government didn’t have any oth-er obligations to the land owners. This is different compared to the land procurement concept which offered share ownership/cooper-ation: the government would still be linked to the land owners. It’s true that matters would be more complex and that it requires ex-tra attention, but this way is saf-er because the chance of a social conflict to break out is almost zero due to the land owners’ par-ticipation in the project.

Land has always been an interesting top-ic of discussion due to its limited supply in light of the public’s

growing demand. Indonesia’s current population is estimated at 245 million and the figure is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. The Indone-sian population is projected to reach 286 million by 2025, 319 million by 2035, and 353 million by 2045. We can imagine how difficult it would be to get a piece of land by that time.

Land problems not only give the people a headache but also the government because Law No.2/2012 on land procurement for development of public facili-ties requires the government to make land available. Article 5 of the land procurement law stat-ed that:

“The party who had the (land) right must let go of their land dur-ing a land procurement intended for the public’s interest after re-ceiving compensation or based on a court’s decision which has a legal standing”.

Article 10 of the land procure-ment law defines the public’s in-terest as:• Nationaldefenseandsecurity• Public roads, toll roads, tun-

nels, railway tracks, train sta-

tions, and train operation fa-cilities

• Reservoirs,dams, irrigations,drinking water pipelines, drainage and sanitation, and development of other irrigation facilities

• Ports,airportsandbustermi-nals

• Oil,gasandgeothermalinfra-structure

• Generators, transmissions,electrical substations, net-works, and electricity distri-butions

• Telecommunication andstate’s informatics networks

• Finaldumpsites• State/regional-runhospitals• Publicsafetyfacilities• State/regional-run public

cemeteries• Social, public facilities and

open green space for the pub-lic

• Wildlifesanctuaryandcultur-al heritage sites

• Government/regionaloffices• Rebuildingofslumareasand/

or land consolidation, and rent houses for low-income people

• State/regional run educationfacilities

• State/regional-run sports fa-cilities; and

• Public markets and publicparking spaces.

The law must be able to keep the problems related to land pro-curement from emerging again because the law had already

The land procurement prob-lem is also experienced by de-velopers. Unlike the government which has the special author-ity to hold land procurement, the private sector has to reach agreements/contracts in procur-ing land. In this case, the land owners and developers have an equal bargaining position, which is different than the unbalanced bargaining position between the government and land own-ers. As a result, developers could not start the development project if the land owners refuse to sell their land to the developers.

Land procurement concept is not only prone to social conflicts, it also requires huge funding, es-pecially if the land that were to be purchased were located in the heart of the city such as on Ja-karta’s Thamrin or Sudirman streets as the price could reach as high as Rp40 million-Rp50 million per square meter. The

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Both the government and the private sector need to find an alternative solution to carry out the development without necessarily having to procure the land. This can be done by offering the land owners to cooperate and to take part so that the development project can run.

A5

Energywww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

1st, 2013. J Saputro, MCA Chief Executive Officer, said that he and his management team will have to face big challenges to get the projects implemented not only according to the approved conditions, but also to the tight time schedule within the 5 years allowed time frame in which the Compact will operate.

Around 60% of the total funds will be spent on various proj-ects under the heading of ‘Green Prosperity’, and the remaining 40% will be spent to improve the nutritional conditions in Indo-nesia’s rural areas, and to help the country improve clean gov-ernance practices. The Compact initially focuses on Jambi and

West Sulawesi provinces, but will be extended to other prov-inces later during the 5 years term of the program.

Saputro said that under the Green Prosperity Programs, projects will be directed toward helping Indonesia to achieve the objectives of renewable energy development. This will include setting up a financing scheme to help finance renewable and oth-er green projects in the selected areas. The Indonesian govern-ment has set an official target of

MCC Starts Activities In Indonesia

Beside raising high hopes for having a meaningful impact on Indonesia’s devel-opment objectives,

the MCC Indonesia Account (MCA) management faces big challenges in implementing proj-ects on the ground.

Lukita Tuwo, the Vice-Chair-man of the National Develop-ment Planning Board (BAPPE-NAS), in his speech to over a hundred invitees at the US Am-bassador’s Residence, on March 27, 2013, celebrating the com-ing Entry into Force (EIF) of the Compact Agreement, said that Indonesia was considered qual-ified to get the MCC fund for de-velopment back in 2009, but much effort was needed to get this qualification translated into real programs that fit Indone-sia’s specific development needs which could be met with MCC funds. Lukita was also speak-ing as Chair of the eight-member Majelis Wali Amanah (MWA), a governing body for the MCA pro-gram implementation.

Lukita found that this pro-gram is unique in the sense that it is not an ordinary bi-later-al ‘grant’ from a rich to a poor-er country. The fund involved in the Compact agreement is man-aged entirely by a special entity, the MCA Indonesia, under Indo-nesian leadership, and is to be spent on projects prioritized by the Indonesian people.

The MWA membership com-prises four government nomi-nees and three members repre-senting the Private Sector, NGOs

ty and promote economic growth hand-in-hand with the Indone-sian government and people. It was designed to meet Indone-sia’s priorities, and it reflects the shared values between the two nations.

US Ambassador Scott Mar-cels, who hosted the gathering, welcomed the implementation of the MCC program as one of the components of the Compre-hensive Cooperation between In-donesia and the USA, agreed by both governments when Presi-dent Obama visited Indonesia 2 years ago.

The $600 million account will be spent over exactly 5 years from the date of the EIF, on April

and Academics. Lukita said that there were many legal and reg-ulatory differences between the US and Indonesia that need to be ‘matched’ to make the pro-gram viable. Both sides, he said, had to go the extra mile to get the agreement finally ready for sign-ing on November 19, 2011 by In-donesian Minister of Finance Agus Martowardoyo and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clin-ton in Bali.

Hillary Clinton, in her re-marks made after the signing ceremony, which was also at-tended by MCC Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yohanes, said that this Compact is so far the largest ever developed to reduce pover-

By RESPECTSAfter three years of meticulous preparation,

primarily solving the complicated legal and regulatory differences

between the US and Indonesia, the

Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC)

is ready to begin to execute the

$600 million MCC Compact Agreement

between the two countries signed in

November 2011.

Hillary Clinton, in her remarks made after the signing ceremony, which was also attended by MCC Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yohanes, said that this Compact is so far the largest ever developed to reduce poverty and promote economic growth hand-in-hand with the Indonesian government and people. It was designed to meet Indonesia’s priorities, and it reflects the shared values between the two nations.

17% of the national energy mix to be provided by renewable en-ergy sources by 2020, but cur-rently less than 5% are actually in the mix, as Indonesia is com-pelled to use more coal to gen-erate electricity to reduce the use of oil, of which the country has become a net importer over the last five years. The govern-ment and PLN plans to catch up with the renewable energy use for electricity by speeding up the use of the geothermal develop-ments which the country has in abundance. The MCA program does not include geothermal but focuses more on biomass, small hydro and solar system develop-ment for rural areas.

Meanwhile, the MCC Indone-sia Country Director, Troy Wray was pleased that his office has helped facilitate the complex process of developing the com-pact over the last two years. He will continue to devote his time and efforts to ensure that the program’s implementation phase will run smoothly. The MCC In-donesia Office is the liaison be-tween MCA Indonesia and MCC based in Washington DC, USA.

Under the Green Prosperi-ty program, there will be a rela-tively small but important proj-ect called ‘Green Knowledge’, the primary objectives of which are to help the country enhance green awareness among the peo-ple, conduct capacity building to manage its green energy re-sources more effectively, and to develop a comprehensive data-base of the country’s renewable energy potentials.

RESPECTS will follow the development of this program in its future editions.

Hillary Clinton

www.voa.gov

A6

Internationalwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Pasar Malam Indonesia 2013 in Netherlands was held for the fourth times since 2010. This year it was held at Malieved, Den Haag, the Netherlands on 20-24 March 2013.

Frans Timmermans, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the King-dom of the Netherlands, and Retno L.P. Marsudi, Ambassa-dor of the Republic of Indone-sia to the Netherlands, officially opened the Pasar Malam Indo-nesia (PMI) 2013.

Ambassador Marsudi in her opening remarks said that Min-ister Timmermans’ visit to Indo-nesia a month ago is a reflection of “new face” relations between Indonesia and the Netherlands. The Ambassador also stated that Minister Timmermans’ atten-dance of the PMI 2013 reflects a new spirit of relations between both countries.

The Ambassador stated fur-ther that the PMI is a reflection of strong historical ties between the two countries, as mentioned

by Minister Timmermans during his visit to Indonesia on February 2013 “Indonesia and the Nether-lands share the same DNA”. The PMI is also a media to promote “the New Indonesia” in regard to new developments in all aspects, including trade, tourism and in-vestment (TTI).

Minister Timmermans stat-ed that there is great future for cooperation between Indonesia

and the Netherlands. Indonesia can become the gateway for the Netherlands to Asia, and on the other hand, the Netherlands can become gateway for Indonesia to Europe.

On the occasion, Deputy Min-ister of Trade Bayu Khrisnamur-ti and the Indonesian Ambassa-dor launched an online directory of Indonesian Restaurants in the Netherlands during the Grand Opening of Indonesian Night Market 2013 in Malieveld, Den Haag (20/03).

The Netherlands holds the largest number of restaurants/stores/stands serving Indone-sian food, while the Indonesian Embassy lists around 1600 plac-es.

The launch of this directo-ry is an effort to sustain and in-crease the popularity of Indo-nesian food in the Netherlands. The popularity of Indonesian food will evidently affect Indone-sian export to the Netherlands. See also Tourism

The 4th Pasar Malam Indonesia in Netherlands

itics and defense will establish cooperation in education and training of diplomats, police force, National Defense Institute and peace keeping.

Two Memorandum of Un-derstandings for Trade and In-dustry have also been careful-ly examined during this Joint Commission Meeting, and will be signed by related ministers from both countries during an upcoming bilateral meeting be-tween the Indonesian and Libe-rian Presidents.

RI, Liberia Boost Cooperation in Trade and Investment

Indonesia and Liberia are committed to cooperate on trade, investment and technical cooperation, as stated by Minister of For-

eign Affairs Marty M. Natalega-wa and his Liberian counter-part, Augustine K. Ngafuan at the first RI-Liberia Joint Com-mission meeting in Gedung Pan-casila, Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs.

Both ministers agreed to sus-tain and strengthen bilateral re-lations between the two coun-tries following the momentum from Indonesian President’s state visit to Monrovia Liberia last February.

“The meeting between both ministers at this time is to dis-cuss and agree on the poten-tial cooperation between the two countries,” said Minister Marty.

During the meeting, both par-ties has agreed on aspects relat-ed to the effort of exploring and increasing potential cooperation in a range of areas.

In the areas of trade and in-vestment, the steps will include an increase of promotion in trade and investment, as well as an in-crease of interaction between government officials and entre-preneurs of both countries.

In the technical cooperation, both countries will focus on ca-

In the areas of trade and investment, the steps will include an increase of promotion in trade and investment, as well as an increase of interaction between government officials and entrepreneurs of both countries.

Both delegates also exchanged views and observations on var-ious regional and international issues such as the Indonesia and Africa relations, Uni Africa, ASE-AN, ECOWAS, Indonesia’s lead-ership in APEC, and Indonesia’s role in advancing democracy in the region through the formation

of Bali Democracy Forum.Bilateral relations between RI-

Liberia have been established since 1955, marked by the pres-ence of Liberian delegate in the Asian-African Conference in Bandung and continued with the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1965.

www.kemlu.go.id

Minister of Foreign Affairs Marty M. Natalegawa (right) and his Liberian counterpart, Augustine K. Ngafuan at the first RI-Liberia Joint Commission meeting in Gedung Pancasila, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

pacity building activities, and sharing of experiences and best practices in the industrial sector. The sectors involved will include furniture manufacture, textile and garment, food and palm oil processing; agriculture (mainly an increase of rice production); fishery (fish farming/ aquacul-ture in particular), management of marine resources and fish-based food processing; and edu-cation, especially through degree and non-degree scholarships.

Meanwhile, the areas of pol-

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu visited Tokyo, Japan, on 29th March 2013 and met with Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Shunichi Suzuki and Parliamentary Vice Min-ister of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan Masaaki Taira.

The ministers discussed bilateral developments and reflected on the positive growth in bilateral trade, in-vestment and tourism flows, as well as cooperation in the creative industries.

They agreed on the im-portance of the role of trade in growth, development and job creation. They discussed the future of the multilateral trading system of the World Trade Organization (WTO), whose term of office of its DG would expire on 31 August 2013.

Minister Pangestu, Vice Minister Suzuki, and Vice Minister Taira concurred on the importance of con-tinuing to strengthen rules based on the framework of the WTO and making prog-ress on multilateral negoti-ations. Both agreed of the need for stronger political will to guide Geneva negoti-ators to ensure deliverables at the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali this De-cember, especially on trade facilitation, in order to gener-ate momentum and to move on to completing the Doha Development Agenda after the Bali meeting.

They also recognized that different approaches in trade such as through bi-lateral and regional agree-ments as well as a multilat-eral agreement, such as the one on services currently be-ing discussed, can be viewed as positive progress. That is,

they need to be managed so that they remain consistent and com-plementary to the multilateral trading system.

Minister Mari also met Yasuo Fukuda, former Japanese Prime Minister who is also President of the Japan-Indonesia Association to exchange views and receive input regarding her candidacy as Director General of the WTO.

Minister Mari also discussed with Chairman of Keidanren Hiromasa Yonekura, as well as some think thank organizations about the importance of the commitment to a global rules-based trading system, which is the ultimate goal of the WTO. In this regard, Minister Panges-tu highlighted the relevance of WTO in the international trade and the importance to safe-guard and monitor global rules. The simplicity of a single frame-work for global trade, standards and rules is key to ensuring all countries, developed, and devel-oping countries, including small countries and all companies, in-cluding SMEs, can participate in global trade. It will also be im-portant for the efficient function-ing of the global value chain.

Minister Pangestu is one among four ministers who are candidates for the DG of the WTO. Other than the four min-isters, there are five other can-didates who are in the race. If elected as the new Director Gen-eral, Dr. Pangestu would be the first woman to hold the position since the creation of the WTO.

Indonesia, Japan Concernon the Future of WTO

Mari Elka Pangestu

www.pasarmalam.indonesia.nl

Frans Timmermans, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Retno L.P. Marsudi, Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Netherlands, officially opened the Pasar Malam Indonesia (PMI) 2013.

The PMI is also a media to promote “the

New Indonesia” in regard to new

developments in all aspects, including trade, tourism and investment (TTI).

A7

Educationwww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

The rapid development and adoption

of Information Technology (IT) in

Indonesia cannot be separated from the contributions of IT

geniuses and college graduates armed

with IT know-how. According to some sources, IT is one of the 10 highest-paying jobs in the

world, especially in the United States, although the term

"information system" is more common than

IT itself.

graduates armed with IT know-how. According to some sources, IT is one of the 10 highest-pay-ing jobs in the world, especially in the United States, although the term "information system" is more common than IT itself.

Unfortunately, the fulfillment of the increasing demands to-wards IT personnel in Indone-sia’s key sectors is still far from adequate, both in quantity and quality. It is said that there about 25 thousand IT students from not less than 200 Higher Educations (HEs) in Indonesia graduate ev-ery year. The number is still far behind from the 500 thousand demands towards IT person-nel by domestic companies ev-ery year. In view of the enormous demand for IT personnel in Indo-nesia, studying in the field is in-deed a clever strategy.

One of the best private uni-versities in Indonesia, Presi-dent University (PRESUNIV), has opened a graduate program: Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT). MSIT pro-gram has two focuses, name-ly: Business Intelligence and IT for Industry. Some of the ad-vantages of joining the program are, among others, students will be tutored directly by experts in the field, who are also graduates of top universities overseas. The lecturers will teach in two lan-guages (English and Bahasa In-donesia). Upon graduating from PRESUNIV, students are expect-ed to advance their careers in multinational companies by us-ing a systematic and logical ap-proach to resolve IT issues in a global and dynamic working en-vironment, as well as contribut-ing significantly to the develop-ment of IT in the country.

By Jhanghiz Syahrivar

bile phones, particularly in the Smartphone segment, do not discourage Indonesians. It also indicates that in addition to its size, the Indonesian population has great buying power.

Some above-mentioned foreign companies are just a small sam-ple of the many companies that profit from the development of technology in Indonesia. In fact, all companies in Indonesia, both small and big ones, use technolo-gy to ensure the survival and the

long-run of their businesses. The technology implemented in the company may be called Manage-ment Information System (MIS), which is a computer system de-signed to maximize the decision making effectiveness and effi-ciency based on three aspects: technology, people (individu-als, groups, and organizations), and data. The implementations of MIS can be found in the Cus-tomer Relationship Management (CRM) software utilized by many hotels and banks to interact with

their customers and to track re-cord sales; Electronic Data Inter-change (EDI) utilized in big retail companies, which make the pro-curement process easier than ever and minimize paper works; the use of Global Positioning Sys-tem (GPS) on transport, tour and travel companies; and so forth.

The rapid development and adoption of Information Tech-nology (IT) in Indonesia cannot be separated from the contribu-tions of IT geniuses and college

Looking at the Prospects of IT in Indonesia

Technology has ad-vanced so rapidly over the last two de-cades, especially in Indonesia. The rap-

id advancement in technology is also accompanied by an increas-ingly heated competition among national and multinational com-panies operating in the coun-try. With a population of around 250 million people, Indonesia is a huge and appealing market for the implementations of some ad-vanced technologies out there, as well as a lucrative market for companies that dedicate them-selves in the name of technolo-gy.

The word "technology" is now often paired with the word ICT or Information Communication Technology. ICT is the terminolo-gy used to describe communica-tion devices, comprising: radio, television, computers, mobile devices, satellites, etc., includ-ing the applications and services utilized, such as videoconferenc-ing and distance learning.

Some foreign companies in the field of ICT, especially mo-bile phones manufacturers, whose brands and products are very popular in Indonesia, are Research in Motion (RIM) from Canada with their Blackber-ry, Samsung from South Korea, which introduces the Android software, Apple from the United States which recently launched their latest mobile, iPhone 5, and the last, Nokia from Fin-land, trying to play in the Smart-phone segment by bundling their Smartphone with Windows soft-ware. The high prices of the mo-

It is said that there about 25 thousand IT students from not less than 200 Higher Educations (HEs) in Indonesia graduate every year. The number is still far behind from the 500 thousand demands towards IT personnel by domestic companies every year.

500thousandsdemands towards IT personnel by domestic companies every year.

www.simonstapleton.com

BUSINESSwww.thepresidentpost.com

April 2013Vol. 2 No.4

SECTION B

The President Post

RNI Sets Aside Rp1.75 to Stabilize Onion Prices

“The program, which is launched in co-operation with Bank BRI and

the Trade Ministry, is intended to stabilize garlic prices because with the program stock would meet the need all the time,” RNI President Director Ismet Hasan Putro, said in a discussion on how to overcome beef and onions crises here on Wednesday.

He said that the warehouse receipt system was aimed to pur-chase farmers production and kept it as stock in the warehous-es in the production centers. “This is our concrete response and step in overcoming garlic price hikes which bring shame to the government,” Ismet said.

Ismet said he was sad to see the increasing price of garlic, skyrocketing from Rp20,000 per kg to about Rp90,000 per kg. He said that garlic business was something new to RNI, but based on its experience in han-dling other commodities and on its good infrastructure networks,

RNI believed that the warehouse receipt system would be suc-cessful.

“BRI assists us in terms of funding. We have warehous-es in 48 regions throughout the country. This condition will en-able RNI to have the competence in handling garlic supply prob-lems,” he said.

He said RNI assured that the warehouse receipt system would benefit farmers and would en-sure the availability of garlic stocks which so far had become the target of garlic business ma-fia.

In an effort to realize the pro-gram, RNI will in the first stage develop garlic plantations in two location in Lombok and Central Sulawesi. In North Lombok, RNI is developing garlic and shallot plantations on a 5,000 hectare of land while in Central Sulawesi, the company is developing 5,000 hectares for plasma farmers and 5,000-10,000 hectares for nucle-us farmers.

The garlic price in Jakarta s Kramat Jati wholesale mar-

ket was recorded at Rp19,306 per kg in January. It rose to Rp25,964 per kg in February and up to March 7, it has reached Rp32,000 per kg.

Garlic was the main contribu-tor to the February inflation with average price increase of 30.25% in 64 cities grouped in the con-sumer price index (IHK). The highest price increase took place in Bandung, West Java, reach-ing 60% and followed by Serang, Banten (56%).

Last week, the prices of garlic in various parts of the country

have reached a range between Rp45,000 per kg and Rp85,000 per kg. Chief Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa earlier asked the ministry of agriculture and the ministry of trade to improve a number of regulations on horti-cultural products, including on-ions in an effort to stabilize price fluctuations.

“I appeal to the agriculture and trade ministers to meet as soon as possible so that they could improve the agriculture and trade ministers’ regulations, particularly with regard to gar-

lic so that supply would meet de-mand,” he said.

However, he said that the gov-ernment would not be careless in importing garlic and shallots that could disadvantage local farmers. “In the case of shallots, our farmers have planted the commodity so that we should take supply and demand into consideration to avoid over sup-ply that would harm their inter-ests,” the coordinating minister for economic affairs said here on Saturday.

State-owned plantation company PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI) is preparing a fund of Rp1.75 trillion through a warehouse receipt program to procure onions and soybean from farmers and to stabilize their prices.

The garlic price in Jakarta`s Kramat Jati wholesale market was recorded at Rp19,306 per kg in January. It rose to Rp25,964 per kg in February and up to March 7, it has reached Rp32,000 per kg. Last week, the prices of garlic in various parts of the country have reached a range between Rp45,000 per kg and Rp85,000 per kg.

MI/Abdus

Matahari Books Strong GrowthPublicly traded retail

company PT Matahari Pu-tra Prima Tbk (MPPA) re-ported a sharp growth in net profit to Rp238.5 billion in 2012 from Rp120.3 bil-lion in the previous year.

Company s President Benjamin Mailool attrib-uted the surge in profit to strong performance of Hy-permart, its chain of hyper-markets.

The company, one of the country s largest retail com-panies, recorded Rp10.9 trillion in income in 2012 or an increase of 22% from the previous year, Benja-min said here on Thursday. “Hypermart outlets have performed solidly and con-tributed strongly to overall

performance of the company,” he said.

He said Matahari Food Divi-sion (MFD) was the main con-tributor with net sales total-ing Rp10.4 trillion. “Since the launch of Hypermart in 2004, MFD has recorded high growth rate in gross sales,” he said.

In 2012, the company expand-ed business by opening new out-lets, in all business lines, he add-ed. MPPA has the largest chain of stores including 80 units of hypermarket, 28 units of super-market, 79 units of dispensa-ry, more than 100 units of fami-ly entertainment centers and 27 book stores, with strategic alli-ance in the operation of 116 de-partment stores in more than 52 city all over the country.

Garuda Doubles Net Profit in 2012The nation s flag carrier

Garuda Indonesia doubled its net profit to $145.4 mil-lion in 2012 from $72.7 mil-lion in the previous year.

Garuda’s President Emirsyah Satar described as satisfactory the perfor-mance of the airline. “It was as expected by financial an-alysts,” Satar said here on Wednesday.

The operating income of the airline rose 12.1% to $3.47 billion in 2012 , from $3.09 million in 2011, he added. Its operating profit shot up 82% to $110.8 mil-lion in 2012 from $64.2 mil-lion in the previous year.

The airline carried 20.4 million passengers in 2012, up 19.6% form 17.1 million

in 2011. The airline also recorded an increase in cargo to 280,285 tons in 2012 or an increase of 22.2% from 229,378 tons in the previous year.

Its seat load factor (SLF) rose to 75.9% from 75.2%, and uti-lization of aircraft increased to 10:44 hours from 10:40 hours. “On Time Performance” (OTP) in 2012 was 84.9%.

Emirsyah Satar

B2

Businesswww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

MTA 2013 is soon to be held in Singapore. It is the largest international exhi-bition of engineering indus-try trade event in Asia, will be showcasing tools that aid in the manufacturing of ma-chine parts for the oil & gas industry at the Singapore Expo from 9–12 April 2013.

This leading event is held every two years and consis-tently delivers buyers of pre-cision engineering technol-ogy from across the whole Asia and from all manufac-turing sectors.

With Singapore being the key manufacturing hub in Asia, coupled with the pres-tige of MTA being the pre-mium market place for both international and regional machine tool brands, MTA has long been the choice platform for machine tool brands to launch their lat-est products and services in Asia.

Over the four days of the show, this event traditional-ly attracts more than 13,700 visitors and 860 exhibiting companies and generates more sales and more media interest than any other mar-keting platform.

MTA 2013 will be putting up a Capabilities Hub – a showcase featuring a group of precision engineering en-terprises that provide a com-prehensive range of products and services catering to high

value sectors such as Aerospace, Complex Equipment, Medical Technology and Oil & Gas. With rising need for state-of-the-art equipment and tech capabilities for highly demanding manufac-turing environments, MTA2013 will offer industry buyers a wide selection of products and solu-tions specifically fashioned for these sectors.

Regarded for their high levels of competency, quality control systems, fast response & turn-around and excellent after-sales

support, these companies include A&One Precision Engineering, ACP Metal Fin-ishing, Beyonics Technology, CEI Contract Manufactur-ing, Chinyee Engineering & Machinery, Frontken (Singa-pore), Fujicon Engineering, Hup Fatt Brothers Engineer-ing, Index Precision Indus-tries, JCS-Vanetec, JEP Pre-cision Engineering, Meiban Group, Microcast, Nanotech-nology Manufacturing, Onn Wah Precision Machining, Racer Technology, Solidmi-cron Technologies, ST Kinet-ics Integrated Engineering, Trek 2000 International, Tru-Marine, Vigor Precision Engineering and Wah Son Engineering.

In conjunction with MTA2013, the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) will be organising the Precision Engineering Centre of Inno-vation (PE COI) Annual Con-ference 2013 on 11 April, and also exhibiting at the event from 9 – 11 April. Vis-itors will not only get to wit-ness a centrepiece booth by SIMTech, they will also have the opportunity to network and interact with industry and business thought lead-ers at the PE COI Annual Conference.

For more information on the MTA 2013 and online regis-tration please visit the web-site at: www.mta-asia.com

MTA 2013 Set to Unveil Precision Engineering Technology

T he Yamaguchi Finan-cial Group controls a number of banks in-cluding Yamaguchi

Bank, which was established in 1878, Momiji Bank established in November 1923, and Kitaky-ushu Bank established in Octo-ber 2010.

BNI, the country’s fourth larg-est bank in assets, said in a news release on Sunday, the coopera-tion with Yamaguchi was made official with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by Gatot Gembiro Noegro-ho, head of Tokyo branch of BNI, and Koichi Fukuda, President of Yamaguchi Financial Group in Tokyo on Thursday.

YMFG operates in leasing, credit card issuer and is a secu-rities company, and has a con-sultancy subsidiary, YM Con-sulting Corp, and a research institute, Kitakyushu Econom-ics Institute. The company group based in Yamaguchi Prefecture commands a total assets of $111 billion with net income averag-ing $218 million a year, based on data in 2012.

BNI, Yamaguchi Financial Group Set up Joint Venture

With rising need for state-of-the-

art equipment and tech capabilities for highly demanding

manufacturing environments,

MTA2013 will offer industry buyers a wide selection of

products and solutions specifically fashioned

for these sectors.

Corporate Secretary of BNI Tribuana Tunggadewi said cur-rently BNI leads other Indone-sian banks in number of bank partners in Japan.

BNI is aggressive in expand-ing cooperation with Japanese regional banks (JRB) to take advantage of strong flows of in-vestment from Japan to Indone-sia lately, Tribuana said. BNI al-ready established partnership with 48 Japanese banks in-cluding 47 regional banks and a Shinkin Bank or cooperative bank. Each of the bank has cus-tomers ready to invest in Indone-sia, Tribuana said.

In 2012, BNI established a Ja-pan Desk to facilitate customers from the regional banks interest-ed in investing in Indonesia, he said. Through the service of the

Japan Desk, BNI could take the initiative to provide various facil-ities to help the customers of the JRB to move their operation bas-es to Indonesia, either by offering rupiah credit, information about Indonesian economic condition , investment climate in Indonesia, and help in securing business li-cense in the country, he said.

BNI will see that the JRB cus-tomers in Indonesia would not turn to big Japanese banks op-erating in Indonesia, he said. There are at least 150 customers of JRB in Indonesia, investing at least $75 million in the country.

Meanwhile, the opening of a new branch office in Osaka on February 20, 2013, support-ing the Tokyo full branch , will strengthen relations with the JRB in the western region of Ja-pan.

Publicly listed state lender PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) has established cooperation with Japan’s Yamaguchi Financial Group (YMFG), a big holding company in the financial and banking sector.

Publicly traded cement com-pany PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk. said it cut its ex-ports by 84.5% but raised sales on the domestic market in 2012.

The company reduced exports to 0.1 million tons in 2012 from 0.6 million tons in the previous year to meet growing demand on the domestic market, corpo-rate secretary Sahat Pangga-bean said.

Its sales on the domestic mar-ket, therefore, surged 12.3% to an all time record of 17.9 mil-lion tons in 2012 from 15.4 mil-lion tons in 2011, he said. The market share of the company`s brand of “Tiga Roda” rose to 32% in 2012 from 31.5% in the previ-ous year, Sahat noted.

He said the company s expan-sion with big investment in its Ready-Mix Concrete (RMC) busi-

ness in 2012 by installing a new batching plant, contributed sig-nificantly to increase in its mar-ket share especially in the Great-er Jakarta area.

He said growing Indonesian middle class and healthy macro economic growth are among the main factors pushing up domes-tic demand notably in the hous-ing market.

He said on February 22, in 2013 the company signed an ini-tial agreement (letter of Intent) on the equipment provision service, construction and implementa-tion with the Sinoma Group. The LOI was part of the plan to build a new factory in Citeureup, in the regency of Bogor, at a cost of up to Rp6.5 trillion, he said.

He said the company was ready to spend huge funds for

investment as it believes demand for cement in the country would continue to grow with big plans of the government to build infra-structure projects, including toll roads and power plants.

“Construction of new infra-structure projects would also boost development of property around the infrastructure,” he said. The company, therefore, will start the construction of a new cement factories with a pro-duction capacity of 4.4 million tons a year in its complex in Ci-teureup this year to be complet-ed in 2015.

Company s chief spokesman Aldo Yuliardy said Indocement has three factories in operation - one in Citeureup, one in Pali-manan of Cirebon and anoth-er in Tarjun, Kota Baru, South Kalimantan. Altogether the fac-

tories have a total production ca-pacity of 18.6 million tons of ce-ment a year, Aldo said.

The one in Citereup with nine production units has a produc-tion capacity of 11.9 million tons, the one in Palimanan with two production units has a produc-tion capacity of 4.1 million tons and the one in Tarjun has a pro-duction capacity of 2.6 million tons.

Indocement Cuts Exports,Boosts Domestic Sales

The company reduced exports to 0.1 million tons in 2012 from 0.6 million tons in the previous year to meet growing demand on the domestic market. Its sales on the domestic market, therefore, surged 12.3% to an all time record of 17.9 million tons in 2012 from 15.4 million tons in 2011.

www.intelasia.net

State-owned Merpati Nusan-tara Airlines President Direc-tor Rudy Setyopurnomo said his airlines hoped that its creditors would write off its outstanding debts.

“I should stay relaxed because Merpati owed the debts to its creditors when it was led by pre-vious managements in the past. We hope the government would settle them because most of the debts also came from state-owned firms,” Rudy said here on Monday.

However, Rudy refused to re-veal the amount of his company`s outstanding debts. He has only been Merpati`s president direc-tor since May 2012. Earlier re-ports have it that Merpati`s out-standing debts reached Rp3.14 trillion.

Merpati owed the money to a number of state firms such as oil and gas firm Pertamina, Bank Mandiri, airport opera-tor PT Angkasa Pura II, state as-set management firm PPA and insurance service Jasindo. “If you have debts and debt collec-

tors come to knock on your door, you will find yourselves inconve-nient,” Rudy said.

Earlier, State-owned Enter-prise Minister Dahlan Iskan asked Merpati to consistently fo-cus on running the operations of its business activities. It should not heavily think of its debts. “Merpati should not be over-whelmed by its debts. It is really unable to pay off (now) its debts,” he said.

Last month, Dahlan Iskan praised even Merpati for its im-proved performance. “Actually I am surprised that Merpati is still able to serve the public under its

current condition,” the minister said.

He said he had met person-ally with members of the board of directors and commissioners of the company to discuss the company`s conditions. The min-ister asked its management to focus on developing its business and not to be overwhelmed by its debts. “Merpati must focus on its business plan so that it will not end up like Batavia Air that has gone bankrupt,” he said.

He said the company`s con-ditions have actually been im-proving as the company has now been able to regularly pay its workers, pay airport cost, fuel needs and insurance albeit through an installment scheme despite its debts left by former di-rectors.

“It is unfair to assess present Merpati performance right now because its present debts were made when the company was led by several directors of the previ-ous periods while the present di-rectors have only worked for less than a year,” he said.

Merpati Seeks Debt Write-off

Rudy Setyopurnomo

B3

Investmentwww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

The government has told state oil and gas company PT Pertam-ina to build an oil re-finery with a process-

ing capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The project to cost around Rp90 trillion ($9.7 billion) will be financed with funds from the state budget, Oil and Gas Di-rector General Edy Hermantoro said here on Tuesday. The gov-ernment will have a participat-ing capital in the project, Edy said here on Tuesday.

Pertamina, which owns all six oil refineries in the country,

Chinese Ambassador Liu Jianchao has suggested that Indonesia improve its invest-ment climate to maintain its robust economic growth.

“Indonesia should work harder to improve its invest-ment climate to attract more foreign investors,” said Liu in an interview with ANTARA here Friday.

Though some foreign in-vestors have complained about the Indonesian invest-ment climate, they will con-tinue to invest in the coun-try, he said. Indonesia is still

enough, and I have asked the people of China to invest in Indo-nesia,” he said.

Liu said that Chinese inves-tors will invest mainly in the in-frastructure sector to support development projects in a num-ber of regions in Indonesia. He also said that a number of Chi-nese banks are also operating in Indonesia to finance several de-velopment projects.

“Chinese investors will be more interested to come to Indo-nesia if the domestic investment condition is well maintained,” Liu said.

Pertamina to Build $9.7 b Oil Refinery

Chinese Envoy Calls on RIto Improve Investment Climate

State electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara is building a submarine electric ca-ble between neighboring islands of Batam-Bintan in the Riau Is-lands province.

The project will cost an esti-mated Rp431 billion including Rp47.5 billion for over land ca-ble to the capital city of Tanjung-pinang, PLN President Nur Pa-mudji said here on Thursday.

PLN cooperates with Viscas Corporation of Japan and PT Karya Mitra Nugraha in install-

ing the submarine cables, Pa-mudji said. The project to trans-mit power from Batam to Bintan, is expected to be completed in mid 2014 or 14 months after the signing of the contract.

Pamudji said building the submarine cable is more effi-cient than building own power plant on Bintan, as the power re-quirement on the island is rela-tively small. Bintan needs only 43 megawatts of power in day time and a little more at night, he said. PLN will buy the power from PLN Batam its subsidiary

on Batam to be distributed to Tanjungpinang on Bintan, only a few miles south of Singapore.

PLN Batam president Dadan Kurniadipura said his company

PLN Constructing Rp431 bSubmarine Cable Project

would build a number of power plants to supply power to Bintan including a gas fired power plant at Tanjunguncang with a capac-ity of 120 MW and a coal fired power plant at Tanjungkasam .

Pamudji said PLN has no plan yet to export power to Singapore, saying the construction of sub-marine cables has nothing to do with any plan to export power to the neighboring country. Even if export is to be made it would not be through the Batam-Bintan cables, which has limited capac-ity, he said.

in the process of learning how to create a conducive investment climate by maintaining political stability and security, he said.

“I think that China also un-derwent the same process when it started investment policy re-forms,” he said. He added eco-nomic cooperation should be based on mutual respect and mutual benefit by avoiding bene-fit in one side only.

He said though Indonesia-China trade in 2012 reached $66.6 billion, both countries still need to improve their economic cooperation. “Trade itself is not

Nur Pamudji

has the competence and expe-rience in building as well as in operating oil refineries, he add-ed. “Pertamina knows all about the specifications of refinery and types of oil products. Pertami-na needs only to collaborate with us,” he said.

The country needs more oil refineries to meet domestic de-mand for refined oil products including oil fuels. The country has been heavily depended on imports for oil fuels. The govern-ment has failed to attract inves-tors to build more oil refineries in the country.

Pertamina officials have said

few investors are interested in oil refining industry as the profit margin is not attractive while the government is not ready to offer incentives.

Edy said his office has just held an internal meeting to dis-cuss plan to build a new oil refin-ery. He said Pertamina will first conduct feasibility study and prepare front-end engineering design of the project to be built integrated with petrochemical factory.

The government has set aside Rp250 billion through the state fund to finance feasibility study, he said. Feasibility study will cover basic design, basic engi-neering design, front-end engi-neering design and final invest-ment decision, he said.

Tender of engineering, pro-curement, and construction

would follow after the feasibility study has been all wrapped up, he said. Construction is expect-ed to start in 2015-2016 to be completed in 2018, he added.

The project will be built on a land piece owned by Pertami-na in South Sumatra either in Plaju-Sungai Gerong or Katim-pa Bengkok. Crude oil as feed-stock for the oil refinery will be imported including from Iraq, Edy said.

Meanwhile, the government has asked Pertamina to make a decision on the status of cooper-ation on oil refinery projects with Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Petro-leum. “Before June, there would be a decision,” he said.

Pertamina plans to team up with Kuwait Petroleum Compa-ny to build a refinery project in Balongan, West Java, and with

Saudi Aramco to build one in Tu-ban, East Java. The two projects to cost each around $9 billion are also expected to be opera-tional in 2018. Negotiations with the two Middle East oil giants on the projects have dragged on for years over incentives.

Currently Pertamina with six refineries has a processing ca-pacity of 1.031 million barrels of crude oil per day. The six refiner-ies include one in Dumai, Riau with a processing capacity of 170,000 barrels of crude oil, Pla-ju, South Sumatra with a pro-cessing capacity of 118,000 bar-rels, Cilacap,Central Java with a processing capacity of 348,000 barrels, Balikpapan, East Kali-mantan 260,000 barrels, Balon-gan, West Java 125,000 barrels, and Kasim, Papua Barat 10,000 barrels per day.

The country needs more oil refineries to meet domestic demand for refined oil products including oil fuels. The country has been heavily depended on imports for oil fuels.

Pertamina plans to team up with Kuwait Petroleum Company to build a refinery project in Balongan, West Java, and with Saudi Aramco to build one in Tuban, East Java. The two projects to cost each around $9 billion are also expected to be operational in 2018.

ANTARA

B4

Infrastructurewww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

KADIN: Financing Institution for Infrastructure Urgently Needed

Chairman of Develop-ment Standing Com-mittee of Kadin In-donesia Bobby Gafur Umar said that in ad-

dition to land acquisition and bureaucracy, funding has is also a major obstacle to the develop-ment of infrastructure.

“The weak climate of infra-structure financing has ham-pered various infrastructure de-velopment [projects],” he said.

According to him, in invest-ment economic value that is at-

tractive to the investors is needed so that infrastructure develop-ment can be supported by the private sector. Ideally, 70-80 per-cent of infrastructure develop-ment is supported by the private sector.

He explained that banks are reluctant to finance projects that are economically less attractive. Furthermore, the credit terms given for the construction of in-frastructure to support the pro-gramme in remote areas is on average 10-15 years.

www.indonesiainfrastructurenews.com

40 MP3EI Projects Worth Rp 337 Billion Prioritizedas 10 projects worth Rp 131 tril-lion and in Sumatera Corridor there will be 12 projects worth Rp 111 trillion. In Kalimantan Corridor five projects will be un-dertaken worth Rp 41 trillion and Sulawesi Corridor will have seven projects worth Rp 61 tril-lion.

Meanwhile, in the Corridor of Bali and Nusa Tenggara, there are only three projects worth Rp 4.1 trillion and the Papua-Malu-ku Islands Corridor will have only two projects worth Rp 3.3 trillion. In addition to the proj-ects that will be built in the six corridors, there is also a nation-

The government will priori-tize the construction of 40 infra-structure projects in the Master Plan for the Acceleration and Ex-pansion of Indonesia Economic Development (MP3EI). The proj-ects with a total investment val-ue of Rp 337 billion will be un-dertaken in 2014-2017.

Deputy for Infrastructure and Regional Development of Coor-dinating Ministry for Econom-ic Affairs Lucky Eko Wuryanto said that of the 40 projects, 15 projects with an investment of Rp 36.2 trillion will see ground-breaking no later than in 2014. Meanwhile, 25 projects worth

Rp 300.8 trillion will have their groundbreaking in 2015-2017.

“The investment value in-cludes estimated cost of land acquisition. However, there are also some projects whose land acquisition cost estimation is not known yet,” said Lucky in a doc-ument of the Committee for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia Economic Develop-ment (KP3EI).

Based on data from KP3EI, the largest investments are still made in Java Corridor and Su-matera Corridor. In Java Corri-dor, the plan is to build as many

al-scale project included in the priority infrastructure projects, namely the Palapa Ring project with an investment of Rp 2.8 tril-lion.

“The projects in eastern Indo-nesia are highly dependent on the State Budget (APBN) and

funding from state-owned enter-prises (BUMNs), while projects in western Indonesia are poten-tially funded using public pri-vate partnership (PPP) scheme,” said Lucky.

Two projects with the biggest value, he said, will be under-taken in Karawang, West Java, namely the Port of Cilamaya worth Rp 40.34 trillion and Ka-rachi Airport worth Rp 36.2 tril-lion. The two projects will begin construction in 2017, respective-ly.

The government, he added, will also build the Kuala Tan-

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin Indonesia) has urged the government to set up a financing institution for infrastructure development in order to boost investors’ interest.

A total of 131 ports in In-donesia will have their im-provement and development works completed by the end of 2014. Thus, there will be 165 harbours ready to sup-port economic growth, since 34 ports were already devel-oped in 2012.

According to Minister of Transportation EE Mang-indaan, improvement and development of the ports are in line with the infrastruc-ture development program within the Master Plan for the Acceleration and Ex-pansion of Indonesia’s Eco-nomic Development (MP3EI) in order to establish con-nectivity while ensuring the safety and security of trans-portation.

“The ports being pre-pared are mostly in East-ern Indonesia,” said Mang-indaan.

He said that from the 34 ports that were already im-proved and built in 2012, 28

of them are in eastern Indonesia. Meanwhile, of the 131 ports be-ing improved and built in 2013 and 2014, 108 ports are located in eastern Indonesia.

According to Mangindaan, increases in port capacity and the construction of new ports are also to work along with the principle of cabotage (operating rights), which have been nurtur-ing the shipping industry in In-donesia. Presidential Instruction No. 5/2005, which contains the cabotage principle, makes the Indonesian National Shipping host in their own country.

If in March 2005 the number of Indonesian-flagged ships was 6,041 ships, in January 2013 the number will grow rapidly to 11,961 units, registering a 98 percent increase.

“The share of national freight was 61.3 percent in 2005, and in 2012 this increased to 98.85 per cent. As for the share of over-seas-bound cargo, growth has also been recorded, from 5.7 per-cent in 2006 to 9.8 percent in 2012,” he said.

131 Ports Development Completed in 2014

Therefore, Kadin has urged the government to establish a fi-nancing institution, be it in the

form of Infrastructure fund or bank, which is able to provide loans with low interest rates.

“Hence, there will be long-term financing with low interest and in accordance with the guaran-tee criteria,” he said.

He stated that there are al-ready such financial institu-tions in other countries, so it is not surprising if the conditions and quality of their infrastruc-ture are better.

“We used to have Bapindo be-fore the crisis, but until now it is still only a discourse of the gov-ernment to provide financial in-stitutions that can ensure the development of infrastructure.”

According to him, the source of funding from financing insti-tutions can be from the Asian Development Bank or govern-ment bonds.

jung Port in Sumatera Corri-dor, which will require an invest-ment of Rp 27 trillion in 2017, Purukcahu-Bangkuang Mang-katip railway line in Kaliman-tan Corridor worth Rp 22 tril-lion in 2017, an international port in Bitung in Sulawesi worth Rp 31 trillion in 2017, South Bali Drinking Water Treatment Sys-tem (SPAM) in Bali - NTT Corri-dor valued at Rp 2.7 trillion, and the Enorotali- Tiom road worth Rp 1.68 trillion in 2016.

In addition, the government has included the construction of eight trans-Sumatra toll road

segments, namely the Medan- Kuala Namu toll road valued at Rp 1.4 trillion, the Kualanamu- Tebing Tinggi toll road worth Rp 3.45 trillion, the Medan-Bin-jai toll road worth Rp 2.03 tril-lion, and the Palembang-In-dralaya toll road worth Rp 1.73 trillion. There are also the Peka-nbaru-Kandis-Dumai toll road worth Rp 14.78 trillion, and the Bakauheni-Terbanggi toll road valued at Rp 22.92 trillion, the Tebing Tinggi-Kisaran-Rantau Prapat toll road worth Rp 13.5 trillion, and the Lubuk Pakam-Tebing Tinggi toll road worth Rp 6.84 trillion.

Investment economic value that is attractive to the investors is needed so that infrastructure development can be supported by the private sector.

Based on data from KP3EI, the largest

investments are still made in Java Corridor and Sumatera Corridor.

B5

Transportationwww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

The Ministry of Trans-portation (Kemen-hub) has stated it will operate 24 new air-ports during 2013-

2015. Some 12 airports of these will operate this year.

“In 2014 and 2015, we are also ready to operate nine air-ports in the eastern region and three airports in western Indo-nesia region,” said Minister of Transportation (Menhub) EE Mangindaan.

Menhub named the 12 new airports: Kuala Namu Airport (Medan), Muara Bungo (Jam-bi), Pekon Serai (West Lam-pung), Bone (South Sulawesi), Bawean (East Java), as well as Sumarorong (Mamasa), Kufar (East Seram), Tual Baru (Malu-ku), Saumlaki Baru (Maluku), Waisai (Raja Ampat), Kama-nap Baru (Serui), and Waghete Baru.

Development of the new air-ports is needed to accommodate

the ever-rising passenger traffic.In addition, the new airports

can also reduce the density of the old airports, which are dif-ficult to develop. Thus, the gov-ernment has considered build-ing new airports in metropolitan cities with multiple airports sys-tem.

The new airports are also in-tended to increase accessibility to isolated areas, such as disas-ter-prone areas, border areas, and areas that have limited ac-cess to transportation, both by sea and land.

Besides, the government has

Government to Operate 24 New Airports up to 2015

also planned to construct and develop several existing airports as part of the MP3EI program, in-cluding Soekarno-Hatta (Jakar-ta), Ngurah Rai (Bali), Juanda

(Surabaya), Ahmad Yani (Sema-rang), Temindung (Samarinda), and Labuan Bajo. Construction of JAATS [Jakarta Automatic Air Traffic Service] Building is also underway and targeted for com-pletion in 2013.

Mangindaan said that the construction of two new air-ports, namely Kertajati Airport (Majalengka) and Karawang Air-port, is also on track. “The con-struction of the Kertajati Airport starts in 2013 and completion of the feasibility study of Karawang Airport is targeted for this year,” he said.

The increasing number of aircraft passengers every year makes Indonesian airlines plan to increase their fleets, but this is expected to create a shortage of human resources, particular-ly pilots.

Indonesia’s Lion Air last year signed a firm order for 230 Boe-ing 737s, and ordered 234 New Airbus this year. The nation-al carrier Garuda Indonesia and its subsidiary Citilink plan to increase their combined fleet to 194 aircraft in 2015 from the current total of 97.

However, Chairman of Indone-sian National Air Carriers Asso-

ciation (INACA) Emirsyah Satar said that Indonesia has only 13 aviation schools, compared with 1,076 schools in the US and 369 in the European Union. The na-tion’s current pilot schools can only produce 300-400 graduates every year. Several pilot courses development held by the Minis-try of Transportation is expected to gradually increase the num-ber of graduates per year, start-ing from 500 people.

Baltic Aviation Academy noted that in five years pilots in Indo-nesia will be as needed as electri-cians in Europe. Indonesian avi-

New Aircrafts Purchased, Indonesia Needs More PilotsThe International Civ-

il Aviation Organization (ICAO) said it has formalized a new project with Indone-sia aimed at improving the management and reduction of its aviation carbon emis-sions.

The large-scale Environ-mental Measures Project will be undertaken between the Ministry of Transport and ICAO’s Technical Co-opera-tion Bureau (ICAO-TCB). It reflects Indonesia’s determi-nation to meaningfully ad-dress the environmental per-formance of its air transport sector over the near- and longer-term, while addition-

ally supporting recent presiden-tial decrees on greenhouse gas emissions.

ICAO-TCB will be working di-rectly on the new project with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The objectives include a master plan for legislative im-provements on emissions, Green Flights and Green Airports oper-ational programs, more efficient airspace design utilizing Perfor-mance-Based Navigation guide-lines, advice on appropriate mar-ket-based measures, as well as initiatives relating to alternative fuels and the development of a comprehensive emissions inven-tory, ICAO said.

ICAO Assists Indonesia on Green Aviation Initiatives

ation market will reach a phase of inducting new aircrafts no-body can pilot, due to the lack of aviation specialists. Effective ca-det training programs, install-ing new full flight simulators, inducting additional aviation training such as Aviation Eng-lish to deal with the upcoming safety issues and bringing back pilot profession its previous at-tractiveness are needed to out-run the upcoming economical losses for the air companies.

“The pilot demand is so high that Indonesia may turn into the situation Northern Asia encoun-tered several years ago. Airlines

Development of the new airports is needed to accommodate the ever-rising passenger traffic.

Future Transport Asia 2013 is the 500

Dr Bambang SusantonoVice Minister, Ministry of Transportation Indonesia

Ir. Djoko KirmantoMinister, Ministry of Public Works

Luky Eko WuryantoDeputy Minister of Infrastructure & Regional Development Coordination, Ministry of Economic Affairs

Emirsyah SatarCEO,Garuda

Prapat ChongsanguanGovernor, State Railway of Thailand

Tan Sri BashirCEO, Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad

Silvester PrakasamDirector – Fare System, Land Transport Authority

Tommy SoetomoPresident Director, Angkasa Pura I

Desmond KuekCEO, SMRT

Oakkar TunCEO, Air KBZ

Featuring conference speakers:

Visit www.smartterminal.com.sg www.smartpassengerrail.com.sg

Ministry of Transportation Indonesia

25 – 27 June 2013Grand Hyatt Jakarta, Indonesia

Co-located events:

FTAsia13Ad(W320xH270).indd 1 19/3/13 10:27 AM

Garuda Indonesia earned two awards for its service ex-cellence awarded by two in-ternational consulting agen-cies. The state-owned airline company earned “2012 Do-mestic Airline of the Year” as 93.3 percent of 28,000 consumers in Indonesia re-sponded of satisfied flying with the airline throughout last year in a survey carried out by an Australia-based Roy Morgan Research.

Roy Morgan Internation-al Director Ira Soekirman stated, “The consumers’ as-sessment for Garuda’s ser-vice excellence was far high-er than their assessments for the other airlines operat-ing in Indonesia.”

The airline also received another the award titled “ASEAN Premium Airline of the Year”, awarded by Frost

& Sullivan, a U.S.-based inter-national business research and consulting agency.

The award resulted from the agency’s research on airline firms providing regular and full service flights that transport at least 20 million passengers per year, airports and plane mainte-nance service firms.

Garuda Indonesia Receives Two International Awards of Excellent Services

The consumers’ assessment for Garuda’s service excellence was far higher than their assessments for the other airlines operating in Indonesia.”

Ira SoekirmanRoy Morgan International Director

EE Mangindaan

inducted new aircrafts into their fleet but due to the lack of decent number of specialists–pilots and technicians were unable to start operations,” said Ricardas Ra-moska, Executive Business De-veloper in Asia Pacific at Baltic Aviation Academy.

Commenting on the pilot shortage situation, Boeing’s Flight Services unit chief cus-tomer officer Roei Ganzarski not-ed the concern is that demand for aircraft and air travel in the whole Asia region is already out-pacing the growth in “provision of pilots and mechanics”. “Here

in Asia-Pacific we’ve already heard of a few airlines that have already reduced their operations or even grounded airplanes be-cause they don’t have the people to fly them,” said Roei.

From 2012 to 2030 the world’s airlines need to recruit 460,000 new pilots, and Asia Pacific ac-counts for 185,600 of that to-tal, states Boeing’s 2012 Current Market Outlook projection. This means that the region will face a need of 9,684 pilots per year, which will make it the main cus-tomer in this type of labor mar-ket.

B6

Events Reviewwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

BREAKFAST DIALOGUE

The Key to Success

On a breakfast dia-logue held at the Fi-nancial Club Jakar-ta, Tahir shared his point of view on what

success is and the essence of be-ing a good entrepreneur.

According to Tahir, the defi-nition of success is different for each person. “For me, family is the most important thing, and when I have good children and I am proud of them, then I feel successful,” he explained.

In conducting his business, Tahir considers three main things. First, he understands well his financial position. “I’m not going to do a business, if I am not able to finance it. I know my strengths and weaknesses,” said Tahir.

Second, the importance of teamwork – people who real-ly understand his mindset, cul-ture, and who can implement his ideas and vision. Third is the fu-ture prospect of the business.

As an entrepreneur, Tahir en-courages other entrepreneurs to give full commitment to Indone-sia. He quoted a Chinese proverb that says: “We are born, grow and die in one place”. Tahir said that Indonesian entrepreneurs should create jobs and value for the welfare of the people. Being entrepreneurs is only a vessel or

a bridge to reach higher goals. Those goals, according to him, are to create higher value in life and to create happiness.

Tahir explained that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are entrepre-neurs that successfully created higher value in life. “Bill Gates makes chips for notebooks for Third World countries so more people can get better education,” he said.

An entrepreneur also has to create happiness. “Start from our family. If you have a big-ger opportunity, you can extend happiness to your staff. With big-ger capacity, you can bring hap-piness to the community. People surrounding you will get benefit because you are a good entrepre-neur,” Tahir explained.

Regarding Indonesia’s eco-nomic condition, Tahir stated that Indonesia needs to export more skilled labor. Only when people enjoy better living will In-donesia’s economy improve, Ta-hir said.

Singapore, he said, has a cen-tral power government but is not corrupt.

“Absolute power corrupts ab-solutely, but it doesn’t happen in Singapore,” he stated, adding that Singapore also prepares its future generations by improv-ing the country’s education and healthcare.

His success began as the founder of PT Bank Mayapada International Tbk. (Mayapada Bank), which has now grown into a large and listed bank. He then expanded his business by penetrating the healthcare business, property, duty-free shops and media, and in the course of it all reaping numerous business awards.

The President Post/Reza Ganesha

Indonesia Business Links (IBL) held the bi-annual confer-ence on CSR: “The 4th” (ICCSR) on 13-14 March 2013 at Balai Kartini Exhibition & Convention Center, Jakarta.

Deputy of Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4) Kuntoro Mangkusub-roto said that the world of busi-ness has to make the role of CSR more than only the result of the government’s demand, for it has to be developed innovatively and relevant to local societies in or-der for them to raise their levels of prosperity.

“It’s better for the company to implement CSR according to the stakeholder’s will and not only to the shareholder’s will. The com-pany has to be able to embrace the immediate societies to be-come good partners,” he said.

Moreover, it is hoped that the world of business could give un-derstanding towards society over the public perception that CSR funds were coming from dona-tions. Kuntoro denied this kind of perception, telling the audi-ence that it made societies de-pend on CSR activities imple-mented by the company.

The 4th International Conferenceand Exhibition on Corporate

Social Responsibility

Entering its 9th edition this year, the big-gest jazz festival in the world, Java Jazz Festival 2013, once again presented colossal jazz festivi-ties at the Jakarta International Exhibition Cen-ter (JIEC) over the weekend of 1-3 March 2013 with the bold theme: “Jazz up the World”.

Joined by over a thousand of Indonesian and international performers in 187 shows on 17 per-formance stages, the three-day festival definite-ly transformed Jakarta into the Mecca of Jazz. Joss Stone, Basia, Craig David, Lisa Stansfield,

Roberta Gambarini are several top world artists that performed in the festival.

Constantly supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy and the Min-ister of Trade, the Java Jazz Festival has tran-scended the scene of music. The festival has be-come an icon of Indonesia; a spectacular event that brings the world to Indonesia, at the same time spreads the good news on Indonesia to the world.

The President Post/Rians Rivco

JAVA JAZZ 2013:

The Biggest Jazz Festivalin the World

It’s better for the company to implement

CSR according to the stakeholder’s will

and not only to the shareholder’s will. The

company has to be able to embrace the immediate societies

to become good partners.”

Kuntoro MangkusubrotoDeputy of Supervision and

Management of Development(UKP4)

The President Post/Muljadi Suganda

B7

Pictorial Eventswww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Suriname’s Foreign Minister Winston G. Lackin visited Indo-nesia to boost cooperation on en-gineering, agriculture, and ener-gy. Minister Lackin also visited the Governor of Yogyakarta Sri Sultan Hamengkubowono X.

Indonesia and Suriname has strong bilateral relations since the arrival of Javanese immi-grants in Suriname in 1890.

Suriname’s Foreign MinisterVisit to Indonesia

JIDD 2013 and APSDEX Exhibition

Ministry of Defense held Jakarta Internation-al Defence Dialogue (JIDD) 2013 at the Ja-

karta Convention Centre. In con-junction with the event, APSDEX was also held to provide exhibi-tion and conference to promote cooperation on defense and se-curity industry. President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President of East Timor Xanana Gusmao took a tour at the

APSDEX exhibition area.

The ministers at the opening ceremony of JIDD 2013 held at the JCC on 20-21 March 2013.President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono opened the Jakarta International Defence Dialogue (JIDD) 2013.

The President Post/Rians Rivco

The President Post/Rians Rivco

LEFT TO RIGHT:Minister of Foreign Affairs of Suriname Winston G. Lackin with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.

JIDD is a defense dialogue forum that brings together the

leaders, military officers, academics and policy makers

from Asia Pacific region, other Asian

countries, Europe and America.

The signing ceremony of the Host Country Agreement for the opening of IDB Group Country Gateway Office in

Indonesia implemented by the Ministry of Finance RI Agus Martowardojo and President of the IDB Group Dr. Ahmad

Mohamed Ali Al-Madani

Islamic Development Bank toOpen Office in Indonesia

The Government of the Repub-lic of Indonesia and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) signed an agreement on IDB’s office es-tablishment as part of raising in-ternational financing coopera-tion between both sides.

The signing was made by Fi-nance Minister Agus Martowar-dojo and President of IDB Group

The President Post/Rians Rivco

JIDD is a defense dialogue forum that brings together the leaders, military officers, aca-demics and policy makers from Asia Pacific region, other Asian countries, Europe and Ameri-ca.

The speakers at the interna-tional dialogue forums were,

among others, Coordinating Minister for Legal, Political and Security Affairs Djoko Suyan-to, Foreign Minister Marty Na-talegawa, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen, Malaysia Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Pakistan Defense Min-ister Syed Naveed Qamar and other state leaders.

Approximately 15% of the pop-ulation of Suriname are descen-dants of Java. Some of them sit on the Cabinet, including Min-ister of Interior Affairs, Minister of Trade, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Minis-try of Youth and Sport, Minis-try of Planning, Land and For-est Management, and Minister of Development of Technology and the Environment.

Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani at the office of the Minis-try of Finance.

“The total amount of aid to Indonesia from IDB about $3 billion, 54% for public sector finance, and the rest for inter-national trade and private,” said Agus Martowardojo.

IDB is an international finan-cial institution based in Jed-dah, Saudi Arabia, and aims to encourage economic and social development of Muslim coun-tries with Sharia principles. IDB membership currently consists of 56 countries with 4 regional offices and representatives in the 12-nation region.

B8

Pictorial Eventswww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Mandala Receives New Airbus A320Mandala Airlines, an airline

with affordable rates, welcomed the latest Airbus A320 to com-plete the company’s plan to grow. With the presence of this Airbus A320, Mandala now has seven planes to serve the needs of In-donesia’s growing market.

The President Post/Rians Rivco

Ribbon-cutting ceremony by Jusman Syafii Djamal, President

Commissioner of PT Mandala Airlines (left to right) Alit Sadikin,

General Manager of Terminal 3 Soekarno Hatta International

Airport, Brata Rafly, Commercial Director Mandala Airlines, Jusman

Djamal, President Commissioner PT Mandala Airlines, and Paul

Rombeek, President Director of Mandala Airlines.

Opening speech by Peter Fanning

The President Post/Heros Barasakti

Wine Tasting at Polo LoungePolo Lounge held a Wine Tast-

ing on Friday (22/3). Polo Lounge provides several types of wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon Subercaseaux Chateau, Cha-teau Subercaseaux Sauvignon Blanc, Delicato Merliot, and d’Arenberg Stump Jump Red. Polo Club also provided lucky draws to 30 expatriates that at-tended the event.

Polo Lounge is a gathering place for local and foreign exec-utives located on the 2nd floor of Menara Batavia Jakarta.

The President Post/Heros Barasakti

Indonesia Australia Business Council GatheringIndonesia Australia Business

Council (IABC) held a members gathering at Hotel Interconti-nental Jakarta on Wednesday (20/3). The event was opened by speech from Vice President of IABC Peter Fanning.

The event was intended to give appreciation to Ramsay Health Care, which was established in 1964 in Sydney, Australia. Ram-say is now becomes one of the largest private hospitals in the world.

The gathering was attended by about 50 members from sev-eral countries.

Philip Morey and Peter Fanning

Edlyn and Shinta Richard Slaney and Leigh Dixon

www.thepresidentpost.com

April 2013Vol 2. No. 4

SECTION C

The President Post

LIVING

I’m not the quiet type. But this was my idea. So ear-lier this year, I drove most of a day to reach Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County to immerse

myself in the practice of mind-ful meditation. To be still, clear of worry over career, my teenage sons’ futures, the renovations of our old house. To see whether I could stop – just stop – for five days and perhaps for a little bit each day afterward.

Not talking turned out to be easy. Meditation, however, is hard work.

In the last decade or so, med-

itation has gone mainstream – practiced by buttoned-down professionals, prison inmates, public school students, Holly-wood celebrities, even the mili-tary and, reportedly, Bill Clinton. It’s being studied by scientists for its effects on blood pressure, depression, pain and attention problems. In our racing-forward lives, we are reaching back thou-sands of years for wisdom about living.

There are hundreds of forms of meditation, but among the best known in the U.S. is mindful-ness meditation, and that’s what I embraced at Spirit Rock.

Diana Winston, who lived for

a time as a Buddhist nun and now is director of education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Re-search Center, defines it: “Paying attention to present moment ex-periences with open, curious at-tention and a willingness to be with what is.”

It’s spiritual but not religious – the way many people view their place in the universe these days. The idea is to gain clarity, wis-dom and freedom, to end up feel-ing compelled to behave with in-tegrity and compassion.

There were nearly 100 of us, who paid $460 to $885 (on a slid-ing scale) for the retreat called “Essential Dharma Meditation.” Our days were scheduled from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. with sitting meditation, walking meditation, eating meditation, working med-itation (chopping vegetables was my daily chore). No reading, no writing, no cellphones.

Mark Coleman, one of my

Mindfulness Meditation:Essential, but Not Easy

By Mary MacVean teachers at the retreat, says peo-ple typically arrive at Spirit Rock “exhausted [and] burned out.” After a couple of days, “this gets exaggerated, because we start feeling how completely exhaust-ed we are. But “people usually leave feeling buoyant, grounded, more clear. Brightness in their eyes. Body more upright.”

Walking outside, a few min-utes before dinner, my wor-ries were calmed by the rolling, grassy hills and the wide-open sky. At least the setting was beautiful.

Meals were vegetarian, buffet style, simple but fresh and deli-cious. We bused our dishes, lin-ing up two at a time to scrape every last bit for compost. One of the few sounds at meals was that particular clink of utensils hitting Corelle dinnerware. I es-pecially appreciated the silence at this time: no pressure to chat about hometowns, jobs, fami-lies.

After dinner, we heard from

the teachers at “dharma talks,” lectures on the practice of med-itation, the Buddha and the re-treat itself. (While we yogis, as

the teachers call us, were silent most of the time, the teachers were less so).

Facing five days of mindful-ness and meditation techniques at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, she’s planning her escape. Will bliss be achieved?

We started our first sitting meditation with the direction to attend only to our breathing. If you lose track, teacher Howard Cohn said, just return to it, with-out judgment – one of many eas-ier-said-than-done instructions I heard during my five days of si-lence.

I breathed in, expanding my chest. Suddenly, I was sorting out details of a dinner I was giv-ing when I got back to L.A. Oops. Back to the breath. One breath, maybe two, and my mind was off again, wondering about my son who was on a trip to Israel.

There are signs posted ev-erywhere to preempt questions. Signs in the bathrooms about turning lights off, using scent-free soap and shampoo, taking out the trash. Signs in the rooms about how to clean up, closing doors quietly.

There are hundreds of forms of meditation, but among the best known in the U.S. is mindfulness meditation.

The Biggest and The Most Complete Exhibitionof Gifts and Housewares is Back!The Biggest and The Most Complete Exhibitionof Gifts and Housewares is Back!

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Opening Hours10.00 am - 10.00 pm

DAILY PROGRAM :Business Matching | SeminarInacraft Award | Demo Product

PRODUCT DISPLAY :Gift Items | HousewaresHome & Garden Decoratives | ToysJewelry | Batik | Fashion Product | Painting | etc

www.inacraft.co.id

The 15th Jakarta International Handicraft Trade Fair

We woke up at 6 a.m. One morning, I laced my boots out-side under a night sky still full of stars, the clouds almost obliter-ating a new moon. Wild turkeys gobbled. Another morning, we emerged into cold fog.

In Uggs and Patagonia, sweats and shawls, we proceeded into the hall for the meditation that precedes breakfast. The idea is that meditating together shores up each individual effort. I couldn’t help but wonder wheth-er people were competing to look the most serene.

We meditated on floor mats or straight-backed chairs. Each person customized his or her spot, with pillows or little kneel-ing platforms. Cross-legged was the predominant position. I looked around and copied oth-er postures to find the right one for me, but no matter how I set-tled in, at some point, I was itch-ing to move. Was I the only one who could not sit with ease? The silence was intimidating. What if I coughed? Just scratching my arm sounded like screech-ing cats.

Coleman asked us to concen-

trate on “just this moment.” As I

said, easier said than done.Coleman likened the process

to puppy training on newspa-per. Return to the paper. Over and over, without anger. I liked the comparison. It reminded me not to be so serious as I pursued a serious goal.

We alternated meditations of 30 to 60 minutes with meals and a yoga class. Twice, we met in small groups with a teacher. In those we talked, though not much. Cohn joked that some of us may have been planning our escape. Busted! I thought, won-dering how loud my rolling suit-case would be on the walkway to the parking lot.

By the second full day, I was

a little headachy, a little foggy. But my sitting – if not my med-itation – improved. By the end of the retreat, there were sittings at which the ending-gong star-tled me.

The advice for our walking meditations was to slowly pace, perhaps for 20 steps, and feel our feet pick up and put down. To me, the chance to walk felt like recess. I walked along the hilly crisscrossing trails, and I spotted deer, hawks and one day,

14 raucous wild turkeys cross-ing the stream.

Buddha, Cole said, was a

privileged 20-something with time to contemplate the nature of existence, posing a question: “In spite of all my comfort and privilege, I am unhappy. Does that ring true to anyone?”

It apparently rings true to many people. UCLA’s Winston says that meditation’s moment has arrived. The other parents in her child’s preschool were so taken with her parental pa-tience that she was asked to give them a class in mindful medita-tion.

The world is not a quiet place, even when civilization is left be-hind. Birds and planes, motors and rolling luggage all intrude into silence. But silence is with-in us, even amid mortgages, children and work.

My spiritual journey was deep enough to hold me through the long drive home on the I-5 and to get me and my family start-ed on a home practice. I plan to keep trying for enlightenment, even if I have to settle for just a slightly tamer mind. (LA Times)

C2

Healthwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

A treatment that removes heavy metals from the body has long been touted as an alterna-tive therapy to combat harden-ing arteries. Now a 10-year, $31-million clinical trial has found that chelation therapy does help heart attack patients slightly re-duce their risk of serious heart problems — but not enough for the researchers to encourage mainstream cardiologists to of-fer it to their patients.

The trial revealed a very mod-est benefit for patients who took chelation therapy rather than a placebo, according to results published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medi-cal Assn.

The findings came in for harsh criticism by other experts who worried that the results might encourage patients to take up a still unproven and potentially dangerous treatment. “It’s a type of medical quackery that has been around for many decades,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Chelation therapy was intro-

duced around World War II as an antidote against an arsenic-based poison gas called Lewisite. The drug tested in the JAMA study — called ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid, or EDTA — was used to treat lead poisoning in Navy personnel who repainted ships’ hulls.

About 50 years ago, it came into vogue as an apparent way to remove mineral-rich deposits of plaque that can cause arteries to harden in a condition known as atherosclerosis. Though still on the fringe, chelation therapy has been gaining traction: A Nation-al Center for Health Statistics report estimated that 111,000 patients had the expensive, time-consuming therapy in 2007 — a 68% jump from 2002.

Researchers from 134 facilities

agreed to administer a cocktail comprising disodium EDTA, vi-tamins and electrolytes or a pla-cebo to 1,708 patients who were at least 50 years old and had suf-fered a heart attack at least six weeks earlier. The 40 infusions were spread out over more than a year.

The researchers found that chelation did reduce patients’ overall risk of heart problems, such as stroke and angina re-quiring hospitalization. Chela-tion patients’ heart attack rate

was 6%, compared with 8% for those on the placebo.

The strongest effect was seen

with procedures to reopen the coronary artery: 15% of chela-tion patients needed them, com-pared with 18% of patients who got the placebo treatment. The difference was small, but it was just enough to be statistical-ly significant, said Dr. Gervasio Lamas, the Columbia University cardiologist who led the study.

But the clinical trial was be-set by a host of problems, said Nissen, who wrote an editorial in JAMA that was deeply criti-cal of the study. Many of the pa-tients dropped out of the trial, thus weakening the results, he said. What’s more, some of the patients were treated in alterna-tive medicine centers that sold unproven remedies such as aro-matherapy and crystal therapy.

Lamas said all researchers were thoroughly trained for their duties, whether they were doc-

Fringe Therapy MayHelp Heart Patients

tors experienced in clinical trials or alternative medicine practitio-ners with expertise in chelation treatments. He also said some patients were bound to drop out of a study that was so time-con-suming. (Each infusion lasted several hours.)

JAMA Editor in Chief Howard Bauchner said the study was put through the wringer before it was published, with the results vetted by a team of cardiologists, statisticians and other research-ers. It deserved to be published regardless of negative attitudes toward the paper, he said.

But the findings are far from definitive, Hochman said: “The therapy’s not ready for prime time.” Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a Yale University cardiologist who was not involved in the study, said: “It’s a terrific group of inves-tigators who’ve addressed an in-teresting question, who’ve come up with a surprising result that nobody knows what to do with.” LA Times

The international proj-ect, known as the Col-laborative Oncologi-cal Gene-environment Study, or COGS, near-

ly doubled the number of genet-ic markers known to be linked with the three cancers, scientists reported Wednesday. Their find-ings could lead to more effective ways to screen, study and treat these diseases.

“While these papers may not be what the average person is looking for — e.g., a cure for cancer — they have important near-term value” for medical re-searchers, said John Witte, an epidemiologist at UC San Fran-cisco and co-author of a com-mentary on the work that ap-peared in Nature Genetics, one of five journals that published 13 studies detailing the COGS re-

sults. Witte was not a member of the collaboration.

For the last decade or so, can-cer researchers have been work-ing hard to ferret out the DNA changes associated with cancers and other common afflictions. They examine the DNA of large groups of people with and with-out certain diseases to see if any genetic variations can be linked to particular conditions.

One hope has been to pinpoint the people at highest risk for de-veloping health problems. An-other has been to identify the in-dividual genes that cause illness in the first place so that scien-tists can better understand how those genes cause harm and use that information to develop bet-ter treatments.

But the work has been diffi-

Scientists Discover New DNA Regions Associated with Three CancersA massive gene-hunting effort involving hundreds of scientists has identified 74 newly discovered regions of DNA that are associated with breast, ovarian and prostate cancers — diseases that strike about half a million Americans every year.

cult because many of the vari-ations linked to diseases are turning out to be more rare than scientists had originally thought, said Harvard Medical School ge-netics professor Raju Kucherla-pati, who was not involved in the COGS group.

By examining hundreds of

thousands of locations on the genome in 250,000 people with and without cancer, the COGS study was able to reveal more as-sociations than smaller studies could. In addition to confirming many genetic markers that had already been found, scientists discovered 41 new regions linked with overall risk for breast can-cer, three associated with over-all risk for ovarian cancer and 23 tied to overall risk for pros-tate cancer.

Researchers also found addi-tional variations linked to sub-types of breast and ovarian can-cer, and noted that 16 of the new regions associated with prostate cancer were linked to aggressive forms of the disease.

Generally, the risks associat-ed with the genetic changes were modest — about 10% to 20% more than the small risks faced

in the general population. To put that in perspective, Kucherlapa-ti said, more than half of wom-en who have the most danger-ous mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes will develop breast cancer during their lives.

But relatively small increases in risk can add up to become sig-nificant, said geneticist Rosalind Eeles of the Institute for Cancer Research in Sutton, England, co-author of a study in Nature Genetics that detailed the pros-tate cancer findings.

In Eeles’ paper, men who fell

in the top 1% of risk were nearly five times more likely to develop prostate cancer than the rest of the men in the study. (According to the National Cancer Institute, 16% of American men will be di-agnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.) Perhaps target-ing such men for additional tests could improve screening, Eeles and her co-authors wrote.

Scientists said that looking for the small genetic changes — known as single nucleotide poly-morphisms, or SNPs — in people who are already at high risk for disease could help physicians’ early detection efforts. “If you have a family history, the SNPs can improve the risk estimate,” Eeles said, adding that much more research is needed before SNP screening would be ready for use.

The new data also under-score how much scientists still haven’t figured out about how the genes we inherit contribute to our cancer risk. For instance, it is thought that there are more than 1,000 genetic regions as-sociated with breast cancer. Yet only 76 common variants have been identified so far, University of Cambridge cancer researcher Douglas Easton and co-authors wrote in one of the studies pub-lished in Nature Genetics.

In all, the scientists said, about a third of the variants be-lieved to be associated with the three cancers had been discov-ered. What explains the remain-ing two-thirds is “obviously” the $64-million question, Easton said. LA Times

What’s a healthful food and what’s a healing food? Is there a difference? At least since the mid-19th century, when the Battle Creek Sani-tarium opened its doors and people flocked there to fol-low John Harvey Kellogg’s regime of whole grains, nuts and frequent enemas, many Americans have sought food as medicine.

Food companies under-stand transform the latest super foods into products that the American palate will accept. But in so doing, they often create items that are not healing at all, and may not even be healthful.

The idea of food as medi-cine falls under the umbrella of holistic health, a philoso-phy and approach to medi-cine that takes into consider-ation the interconnectedness of the body, mind, spirit and emotions, and emphasizes balance. Holistic health has its share of chefs who work creatively with the foods they consider to be super foods. Some of the chefs are vegan, others specialize in raw food, believing that cooking robs food of its nutritive, life-sus-taining powers.

Elizabeth Eckholt, a Bay

Area holistic chef, is a cancer survivor who feels that she recovered from the effects of chemotherapy through di-etary changes. She has a high regard for healing foods and knows how to cook with them.

Eckholt prefers the term “balancing foods” because, she says, they assist the body in healing by helping to create an “internal balance.” She works such ingredients into the delicious fare she makes as a caterer. They’re add-ons that bump up the nutrient value of her reper-toire, including goji berries, cacao, maca root and hemp seed, bee products and aloe vera, spirulina and oth-er “super blue-green algae,” sea vegetables and ferment-ed foods like kimchi, bur-dock root, dandelion root and stinging nettles.

Good digestion is key to

internal balance — this is something that even holis-tic health skeptics can agree upon. Eckholt refers to the body as one’s “inner terrain,” which, like a swamp, is hot, dark and wet. It can also be-come murky, full of sludge. When this happens, Eckholt recommends a balancing diet, perhaps a few weeks of raw foods and green juices.

Most serious holistic chefs shun packaged “super foods.” They like to know the farmers who raise the food they buy. Eckholt seeks out raw almonds at the farm-ers market that haven’t been steam-pasteurized. She’ll only use coconut water if it comes right from the young coconut. Said Eckholt: “If you’re going to try to heal your body with food, start with real food.” LA Times

Food as Medicine?What to Make of the ClaimsThe idea of food as medicine falls under the umbrella of holistic health, a philosophy and approach to medicine that takes into consideration the interconnectedness of the body, mind, spirit and emotions, and emphasizes balance.

Chelation therapy was introduced around World War II as an antidote against an arsenic-based poison gas called Lewisite. The drug tested in the JAMA study — called ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid, or EDTA — was used to treat lead poisoning in Navy personnel who repainted ships’ hulls.

www.kcbodylogicmd.com

For the last decade or so, cancer researchers have been working hard to ferret out the DNA changes associated with cancers and other common afflictions. They examine the DNA of large groups of people with and without certain diseases to see if any genetic variations can be linked to particular conditions.

C3

Tourismwww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Bali to Develop Puri TourismFor Cultural Preservation

The Bali Hotels Associa-tion planed to develop puri (palace) tour packages as a kingdom heritage in the is-land of gods for cultural preservation.

“By this tour package, tourists can learn about tra-ditional dances, cook, mak-ing offering and others, while they can stay at residents homes,” Executive Director of Bali Hotels Association (BHA) Djinaldo Gosana said here on Thursday.

He said the puri tour pack-age is a combination form between rural tourism de-velopment and palaces fami-ly activities, so tourists could

tion between the community and family castles which has existed since ancient times,” he said.

He targeted that the cas-tle tour packages can al-ready be realized by the mid-dle of 2013 at high season. “Tourists from Europe and America usually love cul-tural tours, and the guides are also from castles sur-rounding communities,” he said adding that the rate per night is about Rp1 million.

“Our target is to present one castle in every district and hopefully it can serve a new tourism trend,” said Dj-inaldi.

“Pasar Malam” Introduces Indonesia to the Dutch

When talking about snorkeling loca-tion in Indone-sia, places such as southern Bali

area, Bunaken waterpark of North Sulawesi or Raja Ampat in Papua may have already made its name among tourists.

But here is another place worth trying, and it is not too far to reach from the capital Ja-karta. It is Pahawang island in the south of Lampung province. That small island and its sur-rounding offers visitors the view of white sandy beach which is home to corals such as Acropora Acuminata and anemones. The blue-green sea water that sur-rounds the islands enables div-ers to see the rich ecosystem liv-ing in the area.

Just put on the goggles and dive in, visitors can spot on ex-otic fish such as clownfish (fa-mously known as Nemo from the cartoon movie Finding Nemo), blue and purple starfish and na-poleon fish swimming between the corals.

Not to mention little seahorses dancing freely around the anem-ones. However anyone may need to be aware of sea urchin that peeks between corals. “This is-land will be strong competitor among beautiful snorkeling lo-cations in Indonesia in the fu-ture,” Reza, a visitor from Jakar-ta said.

Another site that’s worth to visit is Tanjung Putus area. It is actually two separate islands which seemed to be one if the sea water subside. Hence, there s lit-tle wave in the seashore in this area. If the sea water subside vis-itors can walk from one island to another. Here the water is clear, and sometimes visitors may spot on jellyfish trapped in the shal-low area due to water subside.

The journey from Jakarta to Pahawang island and Tanjung Putus area is quite tiring for those who use land transpor-tation. First is taking bus from Jakarta to Merak port (Bant-en province). The journey will

take approximately 3 to 4 hours and cost Rp20,000 each. Then cross Sunda strait using ferry to Bakauheni port (Lampung prov-ince) for 45 minutes to one hour.

The journey using ferry (cost: Rp11,500 per person) here is quite tricky bevause it uses “first come first served” system. So if anyone who wants to get a VIP spot with air conditioner and sofa must hurry to get in line. The crew may charge an additional Rp10,000 for those who occupy the VIP room. For those who pre-fer sitting outdoor, there are peo-ple who rent carpet for the price of Rp15,000. The carpet can fit 5-6 people all together.

Pahawang Island Offers Underwater Adventure

Pahawang island located in the south of Lampung province. The small island and its surrounding offers visitors the view of white sandy beach which is home to corals such as Acropora Acuminata and anemones. The blue-green sea water that surrounds the islands enables divers to see the rich ecosystem living in the area.

Once arriving in Bakauheni port, visitors must continue jour-ney using rented car to Ketapang port, a small port in southwest of Lampung province. Usually the journey will take about one to two hours. There are a lot of lo-cal drivers waiting in Bakauhe-ni port, so visitors shouldn t be worried of not getting a rented car.

Average cost for renting a van (containing 8 people) is Rp250,000. Upon arriving at Ketapang port, take a 45-min-ute journey using boat to Paha-wang island.

Total journey from Jakarta to

Pahawang island may take eight to ten hours. However, such long journey is worth the price as vis-itors set foot on the white sandy beach of Pahawang island and see for themselves the rich un-derwater ecosystem in the area.

After snorkeling and playing around Pahawang and Tanjung Putus area, take a rest at Kela-gian island. It is an island owned by the Navy but visitors may rent small cottages there when there s no drill or other naval ac-tivities.

Hiring a small cottage (can fill up to 10 person) may cost you Rp500,000. For the record,

Pasar Malam Indonesia (Indo-nesian Fair) held by the Indone-sian embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands, is a program to in-troduce the country to the inter-national community, particular-ly the Dutch, a spokesman said.

“We have surveyed the imple-mentation of Pasar Malam In-donesia and the result shows a very positive trend as visitors, especially those from the Nether-lands said their visits to this an-nual event because they want to explore all about Indonesia,” the Coordinator of Media Relations of the Indonesian embassy, Her-manus Dimara, said here Tues-day.

He explained Pasar Malam In-donesia 2013, which was held from 20 to 24 March 2013, ex-hibited a variety of interest-ing potentials about Indonesia, namely its industries and devel-opment programs, cultures as well as the archipelago culinary.

“Most of visitors from the Neth-erlands are already familiar with Indonesia, but others said they come to Pasar Malam because they want to know about Indo-nesia better,” Hermanus said.

“Through Pasar Malam I can get information about Indone-sia directly, which is more ex-citing than I could imagine,”

local people there can provide food for you with an average cost of Rp48,000 per person. But to cook, local people usually want to give service to group of 20 or more people.

Thriving business A Kang Alam, a local native

living near Ketapang port, said more and more tourists visit Pa-hawang island every month. This, of course, brings good fortune to the locals such as himself. Busi-ness such as boat rental, tourist guide, snorkel equipment rental and cottage rental are flourish-ing in the area.

“Every weekend there’s always

a group of tourist coming to ei-ther Pahawang island or Tan-jung Putus. Then they choose to rent a cottage at Kelagian is-land,” he said. Alam, who runs a cottage rental at Kelagian island, said he received Rp1,000,000 for the rental of two cottages per week from tourists.

His wife also gets around Rp1,000,000 to Rp1,450,000 for cooking for a group of tourists (20 to 30 person) every week.

However, he reminded tourist to keep the hygiene in the area. Plastic waste, food wrapping waste and pieces of glass may disturb the beauty of the island, he added.

Pasar Malam Indonesia is the largest promotional event held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia over the world and is an integrated and compre-hensive promotion of Indonesia s potentials in the fields of trade, tourism, investment, arts and culture as well as the country s culinary wealth to the Nether-lands and the European public at large.

According to information ob-tained from the committee, the number of visitors on the fourth day reached fifteen thousand people. Amongst the government institutions and companies that support Pasar Malam Indonesia 2013 are the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small-Medium Enterprises, the Ministry of Communication and Information, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, the provincial administrations of Central Java, Maluku and Se-marang City.

State companies that took part in the event are Garuda In-donesia Airlines, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, PT Angkasa Pura II and PT. Pelindo I - IV (Indone-sian Port Corporation) as well as the Indonesian Womens Associ-ation and the Association of In-donesian Palm Oil.

a visitor from Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Marcel Van Straat-en said.

Meanwhile the other visitors, Irene and Marc, also expressed their great appreciation of Pasar Malam Indonesia as they could get to know in detail about Indo-nesia in one occasion.

“I have visited Sumatra, Java and Bali. It was very wonderful. I also like Indonesian food,” Marc said.

Indonesia Fair 2013 was held for the fourth time since 2010

and always drew attention of not only Indonesians but also the Dutch and the international community.

Just put on the goggles and dive in, visitors can spot on exotic fish such as clownfish (famously known as Nemo from the cartoon movie Finding Nemo), blue and purple starfish and napoleon fish swimming between the corals.

enjoy cultural activities that are supported by surrounding resi-dents.

“We have been exploring some puris in Bali for this cooperation such as the family of Jero Kuta Palace in Denpasar, Kanginan Palace in Karangasem, Gianyar Palace, Kerambitan and Peneb-el Palace in Tabanan, Bongkasa Palace in Badung and Singaraja Palace,” he said.

Gosana added the tourist at-traction will be displayed and facilitated by the family castle, while BHA will help to repair pal-ace which will be used as a place to stay. “The purpose of this tour is not to generate feudalism, but we want to revive good coopera-

Hotels, Travel Agents Ready for Sail KomodoA number of hotels, trav-

el agents, and culinary ser-vices in East Nusa Tengg-ara (NTT) provincial city of Kupang are ready for Sail Komodo 2013, according to Kupang deputy Mayor Her-manus Man.

“We have had a meeting with the managers of ho-tels, travel agents, and culi-nary services and they said everything was ready for the upcoming international ma-

ticipants,” Hermanus noted.He added that besides ho-

tels and restaurants, the Ku-pang city administration has also set in order a num-ber of marine tourism at-tractions to greet the Sail Komodo. “Among the marine tourism attractions are the white sandy beaches of Nun-sui and Lasiana where the government will soon build wave retaining wall to avoid abrasion,” he added.

rine event,” Hermanus said here on Monday.

According to him, many star hotels and non-star hotels are already available, while several other star hotels have been com-pleted and will soon be operated in the near future for the guests and participants of the event.

“We have asked all hotel and restaurant operators here to in-volve in the international marine event by providing special offers to Sail Komodo guests and par-

www.pasarmalam.indonesia.nl

Angklung Workshop at Pasar Malam Indonesia 2013. According to information obtained from the committee, the number of visitors on the fourth day reached fifteen thousand people.

Indonesia Fair 2013 was held for the fourth time since 2010 and always drew attention of not only Indonesians but also the Dutch and the international community.

C4

Travelwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

We often hear about disputes between humans and orangutans. One of such disputes is the recent slaughter of orangutans in East Kalimantan. The local oil palm farmers considered the protected species as pests despite the fact that their plantation areas were once the primate’s natural habitat. Some hunted the species for commercial purpose and to sell baby orangutans as pets after killing their mothers.

Fortunately for the pri-mate there are plac-es that offer them protection. One such place is in the Tan-jung Puting National

Park (TNTP), Central Kaliman-tan, a spot called Camp Leakey, which was established in 1971. The rehabilitation center was set up to train orangutans which had been kept as pets so that they could adapt and return to their natural habitat. Orang-utans that lived with humans for a long time would lose their instincts to survive. At the camp they will be trained to adapt to their natural habitats and to re-gain their natural character-istics. Camp Leakey is opened for tourists who wanted to take a closer look at orangutans in their natural habitat. It’s a very interesting place to visit.

To visit TNTP from Pangka-lan Bun, Central Kalimantan, we only need to take a 30-min-ute drive to the Kumai port. To reach the primate rehabilita-tion center, we have to use kapal klotok or a small boat that would sail for 4 hours.

The deeper we enter the na-tional park area, the more pic-turesque and vivid the forest be-comes. The river is narrow and only 4 meters wide.

From all the klotoks that had passed us, none of them carried domestic tourists. They all car-ried foreign tourists whose ages range from 5 years old to the 60s. Some went in groups, while others only with their partners.

While enjoying the serene of the nature, Ardi, who operated

the boat, suddenly screamed: “Proboscis monkeys on the right!”. And he was right, there was a group of proboscis mon-keys hanging on the trees by the river. And just like us, they were enjoying their afternoon snacks, the young leaves from the trees.

It was amazing to see the big-nose primate. Ardi immediately switched off the boat’s engine be-cause he didn’t want to disturb the proboscis monkeys. Short-ly after, the group of proboscis monkeys moved to other places by jumping from one branch to another. They could jump real-ly far, however there were some who failed to land on the right spot.

“If they slip and fall to the riv-er, there are usually crocodiles already waiting to snap them …”, said Ardi as he explained one of the food chain processes in Tan-jung Puting.

“Are there a lot of crocodiles?” “Yes, many and they’re big …

with sizes of about 3 meters, 4 meters… once a foreigner was eaten by the crocodiles when he swam. He was actually already warned that there were many crocodiles here but he didn’t be-lieve it,” said Ardi.

Soon enough some croco-diles emerged to the surface and they were quite big, maybe about three meters long.

We reached Camp Leakey when the sun was already set. This means we could only see the orangutans the next morn-ing. After only walking a few me-ters from Camp Leaky’s dock, we were greeted by a score of orang-utans hanging on the branch-es. It seems like they have gotten used to seeing human beings. Nevertheless we had to keep

our distance from these pri-mates or Pongo Pygmaeus as they are called in Latin because they could let their strong curi-osity get the better of them and just snap our bags and rip them open. This is why every group of tourists had to be accompanied by a park ranger.

After watching them more closely, I found a lot of similar-ities between orangutans and humans, for instance, the ex-pressions on their faces seemed like they were talking. The way they cared for their children was also similar to how human moms would care for their chil-dren. The baby primates were also full of curiosity. We should be glad to have this rehabilitation center because it not only helped orangutans return to their natu-ral habitat but it also helped im-prove the welfare of the local res-idents through tourism.

Text & photos by Adita Alaik

A RAY OF HOPE AT THE Tanjung PuttingNational Park

After watching them more closely, I found a lot of similarities between orangutans and humans, for instance, the expressions on their faces seemed like they were talking. The way they cared for their children was also similar to how human moms would care for their children. The baby primates were also full of curiosity.

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Culturewww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Based on 2010 census of population, the two villages have a total population of 1,566, but only a few of

them are able to communicate in Oirata language and the rest use Ambonese Malay dialect in their daily interaction. “Consequent-ly, Oirata language is classified into an endangered language in Indonesia,” said Soewarsono, a researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in a seminar here on Thursday.

Concerned about the exis-tence of the Oirata language in such a situation, Suwarsono and two other researchers from LIPI, Nazaruddin and Leolita Mas-nun, studied the language and the culture in 2011 and 2012.

Soewarsono said that accord-ing to UNESCO`s Ad Hoc Group on Endangered Languages, there are nine factors that can determine the viability of a lan-guage, its function in society and

the type of measures required for its maintenance or revital-ization. Among the nine factors that happen to the existence of Oirata language are the inter-generational language trans-mission, absolute numbers of speakers, proportion of speakers within the total population, and amount and quality of documen-tation.

Based on their study, Soewar-sono said they found that inter-generational language trans-mission and the proportion of speakers within the total pop-ulation continued to decline. “We have found that the speak-ers of over 50 years old continue to switch from Oirata language to Ambon Malay dialect when speaking to their children and grandchildren at home,” Sowar-sono noted.

But he added that the lan-guage plays an important role in social structure of Oirata peo-ple because every clan in the

two villages has its own unique myth that can be told in Oira-ta language during the custom-ary system of marriage. “Howev-er, the number of speaker in the customary system of marriage also continues to decrease with the passing of time,” Soewarsono went on.

Meanwhile, Nazarudin said his team of researchers in 2013 will focus their study on the de-

velopment of orthography, the system of spelling, as part of an effort to revitalize the Oirata lan-guage. “During our research this year we will try to find the best possible solution to the problem of Oirata language in our effort to revitalize and develop the lan-guage and culture,” Nazarudin said.

Citing a statement by the Summer Institute of Linguis-tics (SIL), the linguistics teach-

Oirata: A Local Language That Faces Extinction

er of the University of Indonesia said a people s identity and cul-ture are intimately tied to their language. He said words that de-scribe a particular cultural prac-tice of idea cannot be translated precisely into another language.

Nazaraudin noted that Oirata is one of many endangered lan-guages which has rich oral cul-tures with stories, and myths passed on to younger genera-

The traditional kolintang mu-sical instrument from Minahasa district in North Sulawesi prov-ince needs to receive official rec-ognition from UNESCO as an in-tangible cultural heritage like angklung from West Java.

Kolintang has been known all over Indonesia and was of-ten brought in cultural missions to various countries in the world but it has not been as lucky as angklung which has been recog-nized as a world intangible her-itage. Therefore, the provincial government of North Sulawe-si will propose that wooden mu-sical instrument of kolintang to UNESCO for an official recogni-tion.

“We will propose kolintang to UNESCO to be recognized as an intangible cultural heritage from North Sulawesi,” local culture and tourism office spokesman Suprianda Ruru said in Mana-do recently.

Before that musical instru-ment is proposed to UNESCO, several preliminary activities will be held to unite a perception about kolintang. “Various work-shops, seminars, and kolintang festival have been held in Mi-nahasa district and elsewhere to recommend kolintang into a world cultural heritage,” Supri-anda said.

Meanwhile, jazz musician Dwiki Dharmawan said in Ja-karta over the weekend that a number of Indonesian students would perform kolintang music at the Internationale Tourismus-Bourse (ITB) Berlin in Germany, on March 6-10, 2013. “A group of 15 Junior High School (SPP) students will play the kolintang musical instrument during the event of ITB Berlin in Germany,” Dwiki said here on Saturday.

The ITB Berlin is the world`s largest tourism trade fair, and the companies represented at the fair include hotels, tourist boards, tour operators, system providers, airlines and car rent-

North Sulawesi Governor Sinyo Sarundajang has said it was the pride of the province that the traditional kolintang musical instrument could stand alongside other modern ones. He noted that kolintang could be played together with a variety of other musical equipment.

“North Sulawesi will even try to blends kolintang, baimboo music and Maengket dance be-cause it is unique in its nature,” Sarundajang noted. He ex-pressed hope that the Associa-tion of National Kolintang Artists (Pinkan) would be able to create

N. Sulawesi Seeks UNESCO Recognition of Kolintang West Sumatra gover-

nor Irwan Prayitno said the strengthening and preser-vation of the Minangkabau cultural values, to be man-aged by the provincial regu-lation, is intended for the in-terest of the whole people.

The governor made the re-marks here on Thursday, with regard to a discussion between the West Sumatra provincial government and the regional legislative as-sembly (DPRD) on the pro-vincial regulation draft per-taining to the strengthening and preservation of the Mi-nangkabau cultural values.

According to him, the strengthening and preserva-tion of the cultural values are aimed to develop the values especially for the provincial people s interest. He pointed out that the provincial regu-lation draft is also aimed to protect the culture and pre-vent it from missing or used by unauthorized parties.

Although the provincial regulation is formulated for the culture and the Minang-kabau community, but the regulation is made based on the Pancasila state ideology and the 1945 constitution, the governor said.

Earlier, the governor said that the influence of glo-balization such as the pro-miscuous acts through so-phisticated technology has undermined the Minang-kabau cultural values. Glo-balization with its advanced technology and the dissem-ination of free information and communication left the point of contact between the Minangkabau and West-ern cultural values, Prayit-no said.

The influence of the West-ern culture has led to the weakening of the Minang-kabau cultural values which were established based on the religious teaching. The weakening of the regional cultural values have been taken into consideration in formulating the provincial

regulation draft, he noted.The governor said further

that the Minangkabau ethnic communities has had their cul-ture that has grown, developed, maintained and handed down by their ancestors since hun-dreds of years ago in order to meet their need. Therefore, rule of law is badly needed to control the influence of the Western cul-tural values in a bid to help pre-serve the local ethnic culture, he said.

The effort to strengthen and preserve the Minangkabau cul-ture is conducted based on a proposal from the Custom Con-sultative Institution of Minang-kabau Culture (LKAAM) and Vil-lage Consultative Custom (KAN), the governor said. Prayitno said Article 9 of Chapter IV relating to governance of the provincial reg-ulation draft stipulates that the governor is assigned to invite the LKAAM dan KAN to hand a pro-posal on the strengthening and preservation of Minangkabau culture. Therefore, LKAAM and KAN leadership should be re-sponsible in formulating the pro-gram of strengthening and pres-ervation of Minangkabau culture concerned. Antara

West Sumatra Governor Prayitno Cites Strengtheningof Minangkabau Culture

Irwan Prayitno

The strengthening and preservation of the cultural values are aimed to develop the values especially for the provincial people`s interest.

The Oirata language, spoken in a small Maluku island of Kisar, is definitely endangered and is feared to become extinct sooner or later if nothing is done about it.

It is the language of a minority group of people in two villages, West Oirata and East Oirata, on the island of Kisar in Southwest Maluku district, Maluku province.

Kolintang had a close relationship with the traditional belief of Minahasa natives which was usually played in ancestor worshiping rituals. That traditional musical instrument was nearly left behind for about 100 years since Christianity came to Minahasa, but in World War II a blind musician, Nelwan Katuuk, reconstructed it accordingly to universal music scales.

Kolintang has been known all over Indonesia and was often brought in cultural missions to various countries in the world but it has not been as lucky as angklung which has been recognized as a world intangible heritage.

a variety of variants that have to do with kolintang.

Meanwhile, art and cultural based creative economy direc-tor general at the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, Ah-man Syah said that amidst tech-nological advances, kolintang re-mains alive and even has a place in the Pinkan organization.

“We hope the Association of National Kolintang Artists will play its active role in preserving and developing kolintang tradi-tional music,” Ahman Syah said when opening a national semi-

cybersulut.com

tions but not in written forms. “Thus if the people of Oirata lose their language, they will as well lose their culture and their mor-al substance,” he noted.

Parents in the villages of West and East Oirata are no longer teaching their language to their children and are not using it ac-tively in everyday conversation. Nazarudin explained that the development of the orthography of Oirata language would be the first step in the effort to maintain the language from extinction.

He added that the documen-tation they did during their re-search in the previous years was limited to basic conversation and speech in traditional wedding ceremonies. “Therefore this year we will expand the documenta-tion of Oirata language into ed-ucation and transactional do-mains,” he said.

Nazarudin said they have documented the vocabularies of Oirata language into a diction-ary, and the structure of the lan-guage into a teaching materi-al to be taught at local schools. According to him, the expansion of the language in these two do-mains was considered impor-tant for the communities of the two villages to be able to interact in their own language.

Both Soewarsono and Naz-arudin reiterated that the en-dangered Oirata language must be preserved and maintained so long as parents in the two villag-es teach the language and cul-

ture to their children and grand-children.

The Oirata tribe in the small island of Kisar live together with the Maher tribe who speak their own respective language. Yoseph Kamanasa, a native speaker of Oirata, said he real-ized his mother tongue was un-der threat of becoming endan-gered because they have to deal with the language of Meher tribe who have much more speakers. But he explained the people of Meher cannot understand nor speak the language of Oirata but Oirata people can speak and un-derstand Meher language.

Kamanasa, a retired teach-er, has even taken the imitative in creating a small dictionary of Oirata in his effort to main-tain and revitalize his moth-er tongue. Therefore he pointed out that he would continue to en-courage his children and others to preserve their language and identity. Antara

nar on kolintang music in North Minahasa late in January 2013. The seminar was organized by Pinkan in cooperation with Manado State University and North Sulawesi culture and tourism office in an effort to maintain and preserve the na-tional culture and arts.

At the time he expressed hope that the seminar would encour-age and advance the success of kulintang music among the people of Minahasa in particu-lar and Indonesia in general.

Originated from Minahasa, North Sulawesi, kolintang mu-sical instrument is made of light but solid local wood whose fiber construction appears in paral-lel lines. That kind of music can produce a long sound which can reach high pitch note as well as low pitch note when struck.

In its early days, Kolintang originally consisted of only a se-ries of wooden bars placed side by side in a row on the legs of the players who would sit on the floor with both legs stretched out in front of them. Later on, the function of the legs was re-placed either by two poles of ba-nana trunk or by a rope which hung them up to a wooden plank.

Kolintang had a close rela-tionship with the traditional be-lief of Minahasa natives which was usually played in ancestor worshiping rituals. That tradi-tional musical instrument was nearly left behind for about 100 years since Christianity came to Minahasa, but in World War II a blind musician, Nelwan Katuuk, reconstructed it ac-cordingly to universal music scales.

The spread of Kolintang has expanded across different lin-guistic and ethnic groupings, and thus it is time for North Su-lawesi to propose it to UNES-CO with a hope to be declared as a world intangible heritage. Antara

al companies. Dwiki said that kolintang has a chance to be listed by UNESCO as a cultur-al heritage because it remains a favorite music for many people, not only in Minahasa but also in other parts of Indonesia.

“Kolintang is a typical musi-cal instrument from Minaha-sa, and it continues to be main-tained by the local community,” Dwiki said. He noted that there were even a lot of seminars about that particular musical instru-ment, and therefore the perfor-mance at ITB Berlin would raise its prestige.

The Oirata tribe. Oirata is one of many endangered languages which has rich oral cultures with stories, and myths passed on to younger generations but not in written forms.

Parents in the villages of West and East Oirata are no longer teaching their language to their children and are not using it actively in everyday conversation.

C6

Propertywww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Beverly Hills Exclusive Pavilion: A Promising Investment

GBC Presiden Director Setiawan Mardjuki (left) and GBC Director Suteja S. Darmono.

The Jababeka industrial area is seeing a growing demand for residence due to the area’s rapid growth. Jababeka is now home to almost 2,000 factories from 30 countries and more than one million workers.

The availability of pavilions or dormitories became essential be-cause the clusters that were built in Movieland not only accommo-date renters working in Jababe-ka area but also workers in the movie industry such as actors, film crew and others. Many local workers from outside Cikarang who wanted to come to work on time and avoid the stress of get-ting caught in a traffic jam also opt to live in the area.

Given such rapid growth, Ja-

babeka Residence was quick to tap the market by launching Beverly Hills Exclusive Pavilion (BHEP) in the elite area of Ja-babeka Cikarang. It’s located in the heart of Jababeka, thus offer-ing the benefit of a quick access. The presence of schools, univer-sity, an international-class golf club and a growing commercial around BHEP, makes BHEP the best residential area for those

who want to stay in the area for quite a while but have no need to buy a house yet.

With plots of land starting

from 150 square-meter and 196 square-meter building, BHEP is a lucrative investment for in-vestors. It also applies a modern design with room sizes starting from 3 x 3.75 square-meter to 3 x 4.75 square-meter, with a bath-room in each room and room siz-es depending on the type of prod-ucts. BHEP owners can rent the

rooms starting from Rp1.5 mil-lion per month or earn a gross income of Rp198 million - Rp300 million per year. And also giv-en the fact that property prices are always showing an upward trend, the investment return on BHEP is sure to become very lu-crative.

The first phase of the Beverly Hills Exclusive Pavilion was al-ready sold out during the grand launching on 16 March 2013 but the second phase will soon be put on sale.

The President Post/Heros Barasakti

Condotel (Condominium-Hotel)

is an alternative property investment amid the economic and tourism sector

growth. This kind of investment is good for property investors who

want to own a hotel, use it and at the same

time generate profits in the form of capital

gains and rents for over a certain period of

time.

The Growth Potentials of Tourism Sectorand Investment in Condotels

number of Indonesia’s middle class, hotel growth, infrastruc-ture improvement and new flight routes to Indonesia’s main tour-ism areas. Aside from becom-ing a tourism destination, the business development of MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conference and Exhibition) in Indonesia was also growing: around 466,000 companies are operating in In-donesia, which offer a potential that they would hold an event at least once a year at Indonesia’s business and tourism centers.

Condotel (Condominium-Ho-

will determine the occupan-cy rate of the hotel and there-fore determine the Return on Investment (ROI) for the inves-tor which will be guaranteed in the first two years, the price value in the secondary market and how optimum its result is during the hotel operation

• Condotels:Chainhotelopera-tor will operate the condotels according to the hotel’s class. The hotel’s class depends on the completeness of the furni-ture unit and facilities offered

by the hotel which is compar-ative to the unit’s purchase price

• Anotherbenefitisthatthein-vestor will obtain an owner-ship document over the hotel unit which is generally in the form of a strata title, the prof-it sharing per unit will be di-vided proportionally in accor-dance with the size of the unit. The investor should also pay attention to the one-year rent-al scheme, reservation con-venience and staying permit through the assistance of the operator/travel agent and the sale value of the hotel unit

• Risks in owning a condo-tel: In the United States, the sale of condotels is supervised by SEC (Securities and Ex-change Commision) to min-imize risks that may arise in a condotel project. In Indone-sia, several condotels are mar-keted before they were built and therefore it’s important to pay attention to the develop-er’s and hotel operator’s rep-utation. Investors should also pay attention to the costs such as maintenance, operation-al, marketing costs and fee for the hotel’s management be-cause they could reduce the profit sharing for the inves-tors. Investors also cannot use the unit anytime they wanted to. Sometimes the unit own-er has to make a special res-ervation especially ahead of a holiday season or the national holidays.

By Andri Marsetianto

tel) is an alternative property in-vestment amid the economic and tourism sector growth. This kind of investment is good for proper-ty investors who want to own a hotel, use it and at the same time generate profits in the form of capital gains and rents for over a certain period of time. As an investment alternative, there are certain aspects that need to be considered when investing in condotels, such as:• Location: Choose a condotel

which is located in a tourism spot or MICE market. Location

Indonesia’s economy post-ed a 6.23% growth last year or below the 2012 revised state budget tar-get, but it was still with-

in the realistic target of 6.3% – 6.5%. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said the economic growth was driven by household spending (5.28%), government consumption (1.25%), gross fixed capital formation (PMTB) (9.81%, exports (2.01%), and im-ports 6.65%. The economic sec-tors that posted the highest growth were transportation and communication at 9.98%, trade, hotel and restaurants 8.11% and the construction sector 7.50%. But the highest contributor to Indonesia’s gross domestic prod-uct were the processed indus-try sector at 23.94% and the trade, hotel and restaurant sec-tor 13.90%.

The growth in the trade, hotel and restaurant sector was pro-pelled by foreign tourist arrivals from January–December 2012, which reached 8,044,462 people, up by 5.61% compared to the pre-vious year. The increase in for-eign tourist arrivals was mainly seen at the main entrance points with the highest percentage: Husein Sastranegara airport, Bandung, with a 27.28% rise, Adisutjipto airport, Yogyakarta 22.35%, and Sepinggan airport, Balikpapan 7.82%.

Domestic tourist arrivals also rose in line with the growing

In Indonesia, several condotels are marketed before they were built and therefore it’s important to pay attention to the developer’s and hotel operator’s reputation. Investors should also pay attention to the costs such as maintenance, operational, marketing costs and fee for the hotel’s management because they could reduce the profit sharing for the investors.

www.casablancarealty.co.id

Choose a condotel which is located in a tourism spot or MICE market. Location will determine the occupancy rate of the hotel and therefore determine the Return on Investment (ROI) for the investor which will be guaranteed in the first two years, the price value in the secondary market and how optimum its result is during the hotel operation

C7

Technologywww.thepresidentpost.com April 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

Nikon describes the D7100 as being the best that DX can of-fer, although it’s im-portant to note this

is not the long-awaited semi-pro replacement for the D300s. To be fair, the specification is now be-yond that of the D300s, but the D7000 is firmly in the enthusi-ast rather than semi-pro cate-gory.

Compared to its predecessor the D7000, the D7100 doesn’t just offer an upgraded sensor with a higher pixel-count. It also features a significantly upgraded AF system, with 51 AF points (15 cross type) as opposed to 39 in the older model. It shares these specifications, and the Multi-Cam 3500DX designation with the D300S, but Nikon promises the autofocus algorithms from the D4 which could, in part, ex-plain the extended sensitivity range.

The critical thing here is that despite the fact that the D7100 is Nikon’s third DX-format 24MP DSLR, its sensor is new, and unique in Nikon’s stable. In a first for Nikon, the D7100’s sen-sor lacks an optical low-pass fil-ter (OLPF).

The improvements aren’t lim-ited to still image capture - the D7100 also offers a nicely up-graded movie mode compared to the D7000. The D7100 will shoot 1080p video, but rather than be-ing limited to just 24p, the new model also offers 25p and 30p options. This model also has a built-in stereo microphones and an optional 1.3X crop mode, giv-ing an effective focal length in-crease of 2X (making a 50mm lens behave like a 100mm). In this crop mode 50/60i movie re-cording is available, which sug-gests it comes from 50/60p, rath-er than being 25/30p capture which is then segmented, but Nikon is not clear on the distinc-tion. Certainly the cropped mode allows faster frame-rates, since stills capture (now at 15MP) in-creases a touch, to 7fps.

The D7100 measures 136x107x76mm and weighs 675g without battery. This makes it 4mm wider, 4mm taller and roughly the same thickness as the D7000, and 15g lighter. The D7100 has an improved grip and a new texture for the mode dial, which in turn now also fea-tures a lock button to prevent it from turning unintentional-

Nikon D7100:Mid-End DSLR With Abundant FeaturesThe Nikon D7100 is the company’s latest upper mid-range DSLR aimed at enthusiasts and aspiring photographers. Announced in February 2013 roughly two and a half years after the D7000, it slots between that model and the D600 in the range. Nikon intends to keep the older D7000 in the current line-up.

ly. The head of the camera now sports stereo microphones.

The D7100 shares the same continuous shooting speed as its predecessor of 6fps, al-though remember it is now shift-ing 50% more pixels per frame. Like its predecessor, the D7100 will shoot 1080p video, but rath-er than being limited to just 24p, the new model also offers 25p and 30p options. The 1.3x crop mode is also supported for vid-eo, although the recording for-mat changes from progressive to interlaced with the choice of 50i or 60i. The maximum recording time in normal quality is 29:59 or 20 minutes in high quality.

Nikon D7100 key features:• 24.1MP DX format CMOS sensor, with no OLPF• EXPEED 3 processing• ISO 100-6400 standard, up to 25600 expanded• Max 6 fps continuous shooting in DX mode, 7fps in 1.3X crop mode• 51 point AF system, 15 sensors cross type• 2016 pixel RGB metering sensor• Spot white balance in live view mode• 1080 60i/30p video recording, built-in stereo mic, mic jack and audio

monitoring jack• Pentaprism with 100% coverage and 0.94X magnification• 3.2”, 1.2m-dot LCD screen (640 x 480 X RGBW)• Front and rear IR receivers• Equivalent water and dust resistance to D800/D300S

Compared to its predecessor the D7000,

the D7100 doesn’t just offer an upgraded sensor

with a higher pixel-count. It also features a significantly upgraded AF system, with 51 AF points (15 cross type)

as opposed to 39 in the older model.

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Golfwww.thepresidentpost.comApril 2013 Vol.2 No. 4

The “Tiger”Strikes BackThe 37-year-old American returned to the top last week after an absence of two and a half years, replacing Rory McIlroy, who has struggled with his game this year following a change of clubs and ball in the close season.

Tiger Woods stayed on top of the world rank-ings on Monday follow-ing Rory McIlroy’s fail-ure to win the Houston

Open on Sunday.The 37-year-old American re-

turned to the top last week af-ter an absence of two and a half years, replacing the 23-year-old Irishman, who has struggled with his game this year following a change of clubs and ball in the close season.

Woods will go into next week’s Masters Tournament at Augusta National with back-to-back wins boosting his confidence, while McIlroy will take part in the Tex-as Open in another bid to win for the first time this year.

Through his eighth victory at Bay Hill, the 37-year-old Woods was able to match the achieve-ments of Sam Snead in PGA (Professional Golf Association) Tour.

Woods has a record of win in 14 prestigious tours and is in the world ranking for 623 weeks. Woods did have to undergo a dif-ficult period over the past year.

It happened after the affair with many women revealed. Not only did he lose the throne of the best golfers since October 2010, Woods was also largely aban-doned by the sponsors.

The win also adds a personal note: Woods has collected 77 tro-phies PGA tournament. Arnold Palmer Invitational Tournament was the 99th professional tour-nament for Woods in prepara-tion for the Masters tournament this month.

Ho-Sung Choi WinsIndonesia PGA Tournament

Ho-Sung Choi closed with a 5-under 67 on Sunday to come from behind and win the Indo-nesia PGA Championship. The 25-year-old South Korean over-hauled overnight leader Kana-me Yokoo of Japan and held off the Philippines’ Juvic Pagun-san to win the OneAsia tourna-ment on Sunday. Choi finished his first Japan Tour title at 19-under-par 269 at Emeralda Golf Club.

He opened with an eagle at the first, but parred his next 10 holes. Choi posted back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13. He stum-bled to a bogey at the 15th, but

nese pair finished in a tie for fifth on 16 under, while Aus-tralia’s Scott Strange, Liang Wen-chong of China, Thai-land’s Thaworn Wiratchant and Yuta Ikeda of Japan were tied for seventh on 15 under.

Aaron Townsend was the next-best placed Australian on 14 under, while Matthew Griffin finished three shots further back.

The win also took Choi to the top of the OneAsia Or-der of Merit alongside Thai-land’s Prayad Marksaeng.

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birdied the final two holes to grab his first tour win.

Third-round leader Kaname Yokoo managed a 2-under 70 on Sunday to finish tied for second at minus-17. He was joined there by Juvic Pagunsan (66) and Young- Han Song (68). Pagun-san birdied the final two holes in his bogey-free six-under 66 but fell two shots short of Choi on 17-under overall, tied for second with South Korea’s Song Young-han and Yokoo.

Hideto Tanihara (68) and Toshinori Muto (70) shared fifth at 16-under-par 272. The Japa-

The win also took Choi to the top of the OneAsia Order of Merit alongside Thailand’s Prayad Marksaeng.

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