Japan Objects to Disbanding of the CGI
Thursday, 01 February, 2007 | 14:25 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Paskah Suzetta, State Minister for National Development Planning, has revealed that although no official decision has yet been made by Tokyo, the Japanese government seems to object to the disbanding of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) and was reluctant as regards negotiating debts bilaterally.

However, Paskah has confirmed that the government still stood by its disbanding of the CGI.

Like it or not, he said, Japan had to follow the decision of the Indonesian government.

Every creditor must adapt to the method that the government wants.

“Now, if (Japan) doesn’t want to work bilaterally, what forum does it want to use? Who does it want to speak with?” said Paskah yesterday (01/31) in Jakarta.

According to him, the government is still seeking a precise solution to negotiate with old and ongoing debts by not using the old conditions set by the CGI.

“The government is still preparing the arguments to be used with creditors so that they do not use the same terms. This will provide relief for Indonesia, at least as regards interest rates and repayment periods,' said Paskah.

He said that so far, creditor countries such as Japan had always applied the terms set by the CGI.

When the Indonesian government revealed its per capita income, for example, Japan did not respond well although the Indonesian government delivered data that Japan desired.

Japan, said Paskah, preferred using data from the World Bank that showed Indonesia's per capita income had been better.

Based on this data, Japan therefore increased loan interest rates for Indonesia.

AGUS SUPRIYANTO