Chindia Growth and the Opportunity

There is an undeniable power surge in Asia, primarily in India and China. Speculation about a strategic joining of forces of India and China into a muscular economic alliance known as “Chindia” has been floated.
Despite once being bitter enemies, the two nations have engaged in a recent detente with each other. Building upon each other's strengths helps advance this cause. However, until now the Chindia concept has appeared to be more theoretical than practical in nature because of lingering boundary issues between the nations. Such an alliance, however, cannot be summarily dismissed.
How India and China partnering with the United States could form a trans-regional triangle that would tighten America's grip on power in the Asia-Pacific Region. [Source: http://www.informaworld.com/
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BRIC Phenomena

"Change, before you have to", once Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Motor Company said.

As we now, a new economic giant in the world, BRIC (Brazil, Rusia, India, China) had summit last week in Brazil. This emerging economic superpower covers almost a half of the world population, with China itself is a biggest exporter in the earth right now. It means that the world map will never be the same again.

Implication of the new world economic map will be happen to our economy, industry, company, and to our job, our wealth. As advise in the book of "Who Moves My Cheese", unavoidable, we should response it with change our thinking, attitude and way to do and manage our work, more efficient, effective and competitive.

Soybean Shortage

Some economists (Syahrir, Pande Radja S) told that the price rise of soybean, and other commodities, is the world trend. The cause is while the demand is continuesly rise, the supply tend to decrease due to tendecy of the farmers to grow corn and other bio-energy commodities.

In Indonesia specificly, demand on soybean for tofu, tempe, ketchup productions are constantly rise, while up to 60% is depend on import. So that, the global price tendency can not be avoided.

The reasonable strategy is to raise up production capacity. However this old strategy has not been maintained well. For farmers to grow soybean were not interested, since the selling price was not interested, compare to other commodities. There was no incentive like to get seed, fertilizer, etc.
The Government should take seriously attention on this issue, because the impact to people economic conditions is significant. And it can be Achilles heel for the rezim, if they fail to manage and overcome the problems. [Risfan Munir, writer of "Participatory Local Economic Development"]

Getting Poor

While the elites were watching and debating on Soeharto case, the people getting suffered of raising price of basic consumer goods.

Many people in each regions had changed their food from rice to any cheaper foods. In Cirebon for example many people had changed their daily food from rice to sweet potato, because per kilogram of rice is Rp 5000 compare to Rp 2000/kg of sweet potato (Kompas, 24-1-2008).

A mother in Ambon told that she had changed her family menu from chicken to tempe-tahu (beancurd), then had to change again to slices of chicken egg.[RM]

Risfan Munir, writer a book "Participatory Local Economic Development: Concept and Practice" (2006)

LED in Indonesia, Lessons to be Learned

Lessons learned from current practice implies radical rethinking of strategies for local economic development in Indonesia, and a parallel reinvention of local government among many challenges, for stand out:

(a) How to make local government more responsive to the needs and demands of those directly involved in local economic activities - producers, traders, exporters, the business community at large, and small scale farmers, fishermen and entrepreneurs in particular;

(b) How to restrcture local government agencies involved in local economic development to replace sectoral and compartementalized initiatives with a more holistic and integrated approach;

(c) How to shift government initiatives for local economic development from a supply driven mode of operation based largely on internal considerations of each line agency, to one that is more flexible, "entrepreneurial" and capable of responding to ever changing market conditions;
How to make the best use of the human and financial resources of local government, not to engage directly in business ventures, but to support and facilitate efforts of others among the business community and private sector.

These are big challenges. As a starting point for addressing them, we propose a set of principles derived from lessons learned covering implementation, economic considerations and the instutional framework.

1. Implementation principles

First and foremost, any initiative shold aiim for action and reslts. Too often, efforts to promote local economic development have devoted mch time and effort to collecting and analyzing data, writing reports, and discssing the issues, all with little concrete reslt. Hence the poplar slogan: NATO (no action, talk only).

2. Economic principles

Experience shows clearly that any initiative for local economic development must start with demand, preferably non-local demand where opportunities and prospects for growth are greater. In line with the ideas outlined for export growth and strong local multipliers involving numerous small scale producers. The aim should be to link those producers and suppliers to export enterprises already active in non-local markets. To allow stakeholders to learn the process, local governments might start with a single cluster, and expand later to other clusters as they gain experience.

3. Institutional principles

To attract and maintain stakeholders interest, a program for local economic development must also be based on the principle of participation in planning and decision making. This implies the need to identify key stakeholders associated with the selected cluster and setting up a forum of some kind to promote development of the cluster. Stakeholders should include not only government officials, but also the business commnity at large, especially small scale enterpreneurs, as well as other interested organizations.

(see also: Hugh Evans and Risfan Munir. "Local Economic Development in Indonesia: Current Practice and Lessons to be Learned," CIPPAD-USC). (Risfan Munir).