SBY had taken courageous step to end the conflict and led Aceh into peaceful and developing region

With war and gruesome internal conflicts still taking tolls and huge resources in a number of developing countries, the D-8 Secretary General shared his concern and plead to leaders in the respected countries to seek peaceful solution to the conflict, thus enabling them to focus and improve their economic development to progress to higher level in the global economy.*)

‘”We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear… That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind… The time is always right to do the right thing… Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Lately, news on TV have been shattering me deep inside. We’ve been bombarded with the heartbreaking drama of the battle between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka. Tens of thousand peoples from both sides have been dead since the war broke out in the mid 1970s until now. And hundreds, if not thousands more, have also been killed in the final fragment of the drama in May 2009. What stroke me the hardest is to see how the lives of ordinary peoples, like children and women, are afflicted by the war, loosing every tiny chance of their lives to take on and watching the lives of their loved ones drifting apart just before their very own eyes. We’ve seen the “flood of fear” in the eyes of thousands of innocent refugees trapped in this ethno-nationalism conflict that carved a painful story of a developing country that is supposed to build the country better for their people.

Internal conflict has taken many tolls in a number of developing countries across the world

Living in Istanbul, Turkey, I have also been deeply moved by similar drama occasionally aired by the Turkish TV stations. Each time I see news where the mothers, fathers, wives, children, and families of a young fallen soldier cried and mourn over their beloved son in the fights against the PKK, my heart cries. As a human being, my heart also grieves when I imagine the feeling of the casualty from the other side, as they were also fighting for what they believe in, and also prayed to the same God as the soldiers they are fighting against. These scenes—which are not uncommon in developing countries—only left me with a dark and gloomy feeling of sadness and grief.

This depressing feeling caused by this type of internal conflict were also present during the years I experienced in Indonesia, where war broke out between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Government of Indonesia since mid of 1970s. It was not a conflict stemmed because the GAM demands the application of Islamic syari’ah in their region—which had been mistakenly identified by many parties in Jakarta, but instead a genuine case of centralistic injustice that were utterly felt by some Acehnese from their fellow Indonesian brothers.

But thank God, finally after a long, tireless peace process efforts, Indonesia succeded to harvest a lasting peace deal with GAM in 2005 in Helsinki, Finland, which was mediated by the former Finland President, and the laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, Martti Ahtisaari. And with this regard, I was lucky to have experienced collaboratively accompanying the then President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (who goes popularly in Indonesia with his initial, SBY), during the early stage of the whole process to seek peaceful ways to end the war.

Under the administration of the former Indonesian President Megawati, in 2002-2004, SBY was the Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs. He took a decisive action to established the Aceh Desk under his office as an effort to solve the security affairs and peace process in Aceh region. Indonesia is a huge country with 230 million people. Geographically, it spans from east to west in almost the same area from Washington D.C (east) to San Francisco (west) of the USA. While from north to the south, it is almost the same length as from Moscow, Russia, to Barcelona of Spain. However, although Indonesian belong to one nation, Bangsa Indonesia, and to one language, Bahasa Indonesia, with the Moslem majority, yet Indonesia has more than 300 ethnics groups, which within the richness of diversity could potentially pose a threat of conflict if managed by inaccurate policies.

Eventhough coming from military background, where he graduated as best cadet from the Military Academy and later on successfully served as army general in the Indonesian Army, SBY is fact is a modern military reformer. His ideas of reformation within the National Indonesian Military (TNI) —especially the one to reduce military involvement in politics—just after the end of the Suharto regime rule were often cited as a brillliant steps. He had been the strongest believer from the very beginning of the establishment of the Aceh Desk, where I was an active member, that the peace solution was the best choice, compared to military operation. He knew that he had to seek balance of his role as Coordinating Minister of Political and Security Affairs, in between his military professional colleagues, who were once had very influential role in Indonesian politics and privileged during Suharto regime, and the demand of Indonesian people for reformation and true democracy. He also knew that he had to balance the influence of the global world’s trend on democracy and human rights, vis-à-vis harsh domestic nationalist faction in the parliement that were voicing objections against the plans to have peace dialogue and negotiation with the GAM, because the two parties: the Republic of Indonesia and the GAM were viewed as unequal by law.

The main leading policy that was used as rule of thumb in the peace process was that  whatever the GAM would request in negotiation, would be heard symphatetically by the Indonesian Government, and would be given the highest attention and shown genuine willingness to implement it. However, the request from the GAM should be made under one major prerequisite that the peace, shall be sought within the brotherhood of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, and never as an independent country.

I joined SBY as Deputy Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs in the first important stage of the peace process in Tokyo, October 2003. Facilitated by the Japanese Government, it was the first international meeting on Aceh Peace Dialogue, attended by delegates from the USA, a number of EU countries, Islamic countries, UN, international organizations and international financial organization such as IMF, the World Bank, and ADB. The meeting was successful, in the way that we were convinced that the world stance on this matter are clear, that they will support the Indonesian Government effort as long as we are honestly willing to enter into peaceful solution with GAM, and they pledged to build Aceh once the peace is achieved. This case was different than the separatism process of East Timor from Indonesia (1998), when the international opinion was strong favor of an independent East Timor state.

In the night before the final meeting in Tokyo, in that Ramadhan month, SBY woke me and other member of Indonesian delegates up to have sahur (early breakfast done by moslem in order to fast during Ramadhan) together, and asked that we pray to God—the very same God that GAM members are also believed in—that the war will be resolved peacefully, and violence will be stopped once for all in Aceh region. I should add, that a firm believer in God, is another trait that has won this General a lot of sympathy in Indonesia.

From Tokyo, facilitated by the Switzerland-based Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, we went off to Geneva to meet the GAM delegates to talk over the Cessation of the Hostility Agreement (COHA). It is important to note that this was the first time the Government of Indonesia, internationally and officially had direct negotiation on peace process with the GAM, which is controlling the movement from their headquarter in Stockholm, Sweden.

It is worthy of note, that an hour before the negotiation started in Geneva, a high ranking military official called from Aceh, informing that they were already in Aceh and had been in the very strategic maneuver position to terminate all the GAM leaders and their fighters in the battle field. They believed that, if SBY agreed, they could take on military operation right away, and the Government could win the war, and therefore negotiation with the GAM in Geneva was not necessary. The respond from SBY was very clear-cut: the military operation is pointless and should be avoided; peace process should be set to proceed.

The Geneva peace meeting resulted in the very first officially agreement between the Indonesian Government and GAM, which was called COHA, although it was far from perfect. Though it has started to grow the seeds of trust between the both parties, the different perspective that has been growing on both sides within the long years of conflict were still tremendously huge to cope. For example, there were differences in the agreement on how GAM would render and control their weaponry; as well as on the reduction of military bases and pulling out of TNI soldiers from Aceh. However, followed by international observers on the COHA, this peace agreement had shown the good faith to the GAM side that Indonesian Government was very serious and willing to end the long and bitter conflict through peaceful ways.

The two international peace processes led by SBY in Tokyo and Geneva was geared into presidential campaign of SBY in 2004, where he pledged that the Aceh conflict will potentially be solved in a humanitarian and peaceful way had he elected President. He delivered that promise in 2005, and facilitated by Marti Ahtisaari, the lasting peace deal between Indonesian Government and the GAM was finally inked.

By these fragments of peace process in Aceh, I was reminded of what Dr Martin Luther King Jr. stated on the strong willingness of us to have a dream on peace and how to make it happens. He said, “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear… That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind… The time is always right to do the right thing… Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” Indeed, leaders of developing countries should have courage to allow, and make peace to happen. This courage will “hold back the flood of fear” of our people from the violence and wars. Now, can the leaders in developing countries learn this courage from the Aceh Peace Process?

If recently, the TIME Magazine had selected President Yudhoyono (SBY) among one of 100 world influential leaders, besides US President Barrack Obama and others, I believe it was a justified selection, and he deserved it.

Photosource: Xinhua Photo, ABC Net.au, D-8

*Personal opinion of D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam.

Overseas investors can own 70 percent of local insurers, Islamic and investment banks and sellers of Shariah-compliant insurance, up from 49 percent, Prime Minister Najib Razak said

Malaysia’s approved foreign direct investment in the manufacturing industry plunged 79 percent in the first quarter amid slumping global demand for the country’s products, a minister said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

The Southeast Asian nation approved 3.3 billion ringgit ($931 million) in foreign direct manufacturing investment from January to March, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. That compares with about 16 billion ringgit a year earlier.

“The deepening global economic downturn damped investment prospects in the first quarter,” Lee Heng Guie and Julia Goh, economists at CIMB Investment Bank Bhd., wrote in a report yesterday. “The tough external environment and weak domestic business sentiments are expected to undermine manufacturing investment prospects in 2009 and 2010.”

Malaysia expects to attract 26 billion ringgit of foreign direct investment in 2009, about half of last year’s total, Finance Minister Najib Razak said on March 10. The government predicts the economy may shrink as much as one percent or expand that much at best this year.
Total approved manufacturing investment from both foreign and local sources was 7.5 billion ringgit in the first quarter, down from 22.7 billion ringgit in the same period last year, Mustapa said.

Singapore is Malaysia’s biggest investor, with approved investments of 820.6 billion ringgit last quarter accounting for about 25 percent of the total, followed by Japan and Taiwan, according to a statement on the ministry’s Web site.

Raising Foreign Ownership Limits

To cope with the investment slupms in the slowing economy, Malaysia also raised foreign ownership limits at non-commercial banks and will let in more overseas lenders for the first time in more than a decade.

Overseas investors can own 70 percent of local insurers, Islamic and investment banks and sellers of Shariah-compliant insurance, up from 49 percent, Prime Minister Najib Razak said earlier last week. Malaysia will issue three licenses to foreign banks in 2011, the first since Bank of China received a permit in 2000.

Najib, 55, scrapped shareholding caps for overseas companies in dozens of services industries last week after projecting a 50 percent plunge in foreign investment this year. Today’s proposal may expand the economic contribution from the finance industry after decades spent promoting Malaysia as an exporter and manufacturing base for Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc.

“It’s good for the banking industry,” said Pankaj Kumar, who manages $540 million of assets as chief investment officer at Kurnia Insurans Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “The government’s intention is to expand the pie so banking institutions will become a larger part of the whole equation.”

Manufacturing accounted for about 26 percent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product in the fourth quarter, compared with 12 percent for the finance, insurance and real-estate industries, according to data from the government’s statistics department.

New Islamic Banking Licenses

Malaysia’s central bank will also issue two new Islamic banking licenses this year, another two to sell Islamic insurance, and as many as two specialized permits to overseas commercial banks, Najib said at his office outside Kuala Lumpur. He kept the foreign shareholding cap on commercial banks at 30 percent.

In office for less than a month, Najib has promised to deliver change including the gradual removal of benefits for the ethnic Malay majority in the multiracial nation.

“The economy is at a crossroads,” said Suhaimi Ilias, an economist at Maybank Investment Bank Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “There is a need to change tack in development strategy.”

The liberalization is part of Najib’s plan to increase the proportion of Malaysia’s gross domestic product derived from services to 60 percent from 55 percent in 2008, and wean the country off export revenue.

Exports Slump

Income from overseas sales of made-in-Malaysia electronics and from crude oil and palm oil has slumped amid the global recession, and Malaysia can no longer rely on income from exports and manufacturing, according to Suhaimi.

According to today’s proposal, foreign banks already incorporated in Malaysia, such as the U.K.’s Standard Chartered Plc, will be able to add four new branches in Malaysia in 2010.

The government expects the $181 billion economy to expand 1 percent this year or shrink the same amount at worst. Many economists expect a larger contraction.

The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index pared some of the day’s losses after the announcement. The measure was down 1.1 percent at 3:47 p.m. local time after falling as much as 1.8 percent.

Last week’s proposals by Najib involved dropping a rule in 27 services sectors, from healthcare to tourism, that required foreign companies to set aside 30 percent of their shares in Malaysia for ethnic Malay investors.

Among Malaysia’s commercial banks, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. has a 19 percent stake in AMMB Holdings Bhd., the fifth-largest lender by assets, while Hong Kong’s Bank of East Asia Ltd. owns about 20 percent of smaller bank Affin Holdings Bhd. Primus Pacific Partners Ltd., a Hong Kong investment firm, owns 20 percent of EON Capital Bhd., which specializes in car loans.

Among D-8 countries, Malaysia is recorded in the top rank of the member with highest FDI, total trade, intra-trade, and export. To cope with the current crisis, D-8 has already set up plan to establish a D-8 Working Group on Investment & Development.

“We plan to push the start button for this Working Group, and introduce them in the 27th Commission meeting this year,” said D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, in his office on Friday. He said that the organization has a great confidence in the collaborative efforts from member states to handle the current crisis.

Source: Bloomberg, Various, D-8.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) plans indicate a drop over the short term, with recovery perhaps coming in 2011

The global downturn that reduced foreign direct investment (FDI) by some 15% in 2008 will probably intensify in 2009, especially for developing countries, UNCTAD´s Secretary-General said.

UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told the first session of UNCTAD´s new Investment, Enterprise, and Development Commission that interviews with the executives of transnational corporations on their foreign direct investment (FDI) plans indicate a drop in FDI over the short term, with recovery perhaps coming in 2011. The decline is likely to be steep for developing countries, he said.

In international discussions on the global economic downturn, “Very little has been said about the impact of the crisis on investment,” the Secretary-General noted. “We need to highlight to the global community the implications for investment and enterprise development. You cannot have recovery without going into new investment, new employment. The financial sector must be cleaned up and be able to support new rounds of investment.

“The decline in FDI will be far deeper this year,” Mr. Panitchpakdi said, adding that great variations can be expected between countries and regions.

Global FDI peaked in 2007 at a record US$1.9 trillion. It fell by roughly 15% last year, but most of the brunt was borne by advanced economies. Developing countries overall still experienced a slight increase in 2008. This year, Mr. Supachai said, the FDI decline will spread to the developing world even as there is talk of “green shoots” of economic recovery elsewhere.

Among current dangers, Mr. Supachai noted, are that encouraging signs in developed country stock markets and other “green shoots” suggesting possible economic recovery may lead to an impression that the crisis is over - when it may continue for a long time yet in developing countries.

“We need an exit strategy,” he said. Developing countries “must not be forgotten: they might not go through the same door. It might turn into a debt crisis for developing countries. To stimulate their economies, keep going, they might have to go into debt.”

Mr. Supachai said UNCTAD will respond to a request from the recent G-20 summit in London and will monitor government measures responding to the financial crisis “that might be seen to be blocking international investment. I wouldn´t call it protectionism, but we should be careful that that kind of ´ism´ doesn´t develop,” he said.

He urged the commission, which meets through 8 May, to consider how reforms to the international financial system - long recommended by UNCTAD - might apply to foreign investment. He said the gathering also should “prepare for the post-crisis global economy, in which new sectors and a new geography for FDI will likely emerge.”

Source: UNCTAD

Egypt's economy growth has picked up from 4.1 percent in the previous three months

Egypt’s economic growth accelerated to 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as construction, telecommunications and transportation expanded, defying the global financial crisis.

Growth picked up from 4.1 percent in the previous three months, the government said earlier last week.

“There is a breakthrough,” Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin said in an interview after a cabinet meeting held to discuss the latest economic indicators in Cairo, as quoted by Bloomberg.

The economy of the most populous Arab country has proved more resilient to the global recession than many economists had expected. The government now forecasts growth of between 4 percent and 4.5 percent in the fiscal year through June, compared with the 4 percent forecast last month, Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady told reporters.

“We are pleasantly surprised by this quarterly growth rate as we had expected more subdued growth,” Reham El-Desoki, senior economist at investment bank Beltone Financial, said in an e-mailed note to clients.

Trade & Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid had earlier said growth in the quarter was 4.7 percent.

The government has approved a stimulus package of 15 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.7 billion) for the current fiscal year and has said it may spend a similar amount the following year.

Industry Growth

Construction expanded 16 percent in the first quarter from the year earlier, while the telecommunications industry grew 14 percent, the cabinet statement said.

Revenue from the Suez Canal and tourism, sources of currency that helped fuel an economic expansion of more than 7 percent in the past three years, declined in the quarter due to the credit crisis, the statement showed.

Revenue from the canal fell 22 percent, compared with a decline of 2.5 percent in the previous quarter. Tourism revenue slid 6 percent over the same period.

“We see a kind of change of leadership in term of Egypt’s GDP growth,” Turker Hamzaoglu, an economist at Bank of America Corp.-Merrill Lynch & Co, said in a telephone interview from London.

“We see that there is some support from consumer spending,” he said. He is forecasting growth of 3.5 percent in the fiscal year through June, from 7.2 percent in the previous year.

Source: Bloomberg

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (C) and delegates from about 70 countries pose for photographers during the opening ceremony of the World Oceans Conference in Manado on May 14, 2009. Photo: ABROR RIZKI/AFP/Getty Images

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono officially opened the ministerial meeting of the World Ocean Conference (WOC) on Thursday in Manado of Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, stressing the need of saving ocean for human kind sustainability.

Yudhoyono said the world had common responsibility to save oceans from distressed condition, over exploitation, pollution, and rising sea level.

“All this is happening right before our eyes. We have recently learned that a massive iceberg in the Antarctic is about to break off this iceberg is said to contain fresh water that is equal to 30 percent of the world’s annual water consumption. If the present trends continued, the world could expect more bad news to come,” he warned.

“There was a time, billions of years ago, when the world was one boiling ocean. According to scientists, it was there that living organism, life as we know it, began to form some hundreds of million years ago,” he said.

Until today, the president added, the sustenance of human life still depended heavily on the oceans.

“Civilization has been connected by the way of sea explorers, and many cultures and way of life around the world have been shaped by their love on the ocean. Covering two thirds of the Earth’s surface, the oceans today make a global economy possible,” he said, adding that seaborne trade is almost 80 percent of global trade.

He urged the world to care about the oceans, saying that without the oceans as source of protein and other nutrients, half of the human race would go hungry ad starve.

“Without food security that oceans make possible, we cannot effectively fight poverty and reach the Millenium Development Goals,” he said.

The president said Indonesia has more than 90,000 kilometers of coastline and some 17,000 islands and a rise in sea level of one meter, which is possible if the global warming is not arrested, will decimate those valuable parts of national territory.

“Some 405,000 hectares of coastal land will go under water and many low-lying islands, along with nearby coral reefs, will simply disappear,” he warned. That is why he urged the world to reverse the trend, to stop the widespread and rapid destruction of the world’s marine and coastal resources.

“We must protect them from human abuse and over exploitation and from the injuries impact of climate change. We must preserve them as our legacy for future generations so that they may live free from the shackles of poverty,” he said. He reminded that under article 192 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) adopted in 1982, all states have the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment.

“Thus, this World Ocean Conference could also be regarded as an implementation of the historic UNCLOS 1982. Indonesia will also doall we can do to faithfully implement UNCLOS provisions for the governance of the oceans,” the president said. At the same time, he said, the world must also enhance these priceless resources which could become a large part of the solution to the problem of food security.

“That means, apart from protecting the oceans, we must learn to sustainability farm so that they will yield much of what we need for human nutrition without depleting them.

The president that the world can galvanize and synchronize oceans and marine research activities. “Because even as we venture to the outer space, there is just so much we do not know about the deep ocean, and we still so not know enough about the inter-relationship between oceans and climate change,” he said.

He said that the WOC was a most auspicious antecedent to the historic event that would take place here.

“For it is my hope that the outcome of this conference and the historic document of Manado Ocean Declaration that we will issue here tomorrow will form one call that is loud and clear for the world to care for and take care of its oceans,” he said.

Yudhoyono stressed that what the world did here at the WOC was not to produce a new process but to strengthen and complement the United Nation Framework of the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“Simply put, the ocean community wants ocean issues to be partof the ongoing global climate change solution. This is critical because, frankly, ocean issues as of yet have not been adequately represented in overall global climate change discussion,” he said.

“Today, its is time for the world to hear yet another important message: that we can only survive the 21st century if we are united in preserving and caring for our oceans.”

As many as 1,835 people attended the WOC that discussed the ways to rescue the oceans. They gathered there for a hugely important challenge, namely to live up to their common responsibility to protect the oceans and to ensure that the seas and mankind will continue to be in harmony.

D-8 had also organized a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event was held during the World Ocean Conference that is attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May, 2009 in the same place.

Source: XINHUA, D-8 Media Source, Various

Marine Tourism requires more proper development in D-8 countries

I Gde Wiratha, the head of Bali Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the development of sea tourism in Bali and Indonesia is not where it should be. The government hasn’t put enough attention into marine tourism.

“Indonesian under water views are very beautiful and it would surely attract tourists to visit Indonesia, but unfortunately it has not been developed properly,” said Wiratha. Mr. Wiratha being one of the coordinators of the Bali Tourism Board, held a meeting in Nusa Dua to discuss the development of marine tourism which has spread from Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, through Papua.

“Tourists visit Bali often and are curious to see Bali’s under-sea scenery and the government should build the equipment needed for the development such as piers and roads,” added Wiratha. Currently he is developing marine tourism in Gili Rengit and Gili Lontar in southern Lombok.

The Benoa harbor is one of the harbors available in Bali but it is not arranged properly. The conditions at the harbor aren’t suitable for tourists who are traveling through the harbor in order to get to their cruise ships.

D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, said that marine tourism, which include coastal tourism and recreation are important parts of the largest and most rapidly growing activity in the world, the international tourism. Being a grouping with most of its memberstates are countries with marine potentials, Dipo underlined that issue relevant to coastal/marine tourism development shall be thoroughly discussed in consultative meeting in between World Ocean Conference, 11-15 May 2009 in Manado.

“Indeed, for us tourism can be viewed as a quick and reliable source of much sought after foreign exchange; as a source of job creation and more importantly a link to our agricultural sector, fisheries, forestry and construction and handicraft industries,” said Alam further.

D-8 will be organizing a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event will be held during the World Ocean Conference that will be attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May,  2009 in the same place.

Source: International Bali Post, D-8 Media.

Both as historical, and a marine tourism site, Serangan will serves fascinating story for tourists, while the main attraction will be the magnificent underwater coral reef garden

Following their success with transplanting coral, residents of Serangan, Denpasar, Indonesia, are planning to develop a marine tourism site to give visitors a chance to experience the beautiful underwater scenery while learning about environment.

“We are still working on the concept,” said Wayan Patut, who pioneered the coral reef transplantation in Serangan. “But basically the people, the village administration and the traditional leaders have agreed to make it happen.”

Serangan, about 10 kilometers south of the heart of Denpasar, used to be a small island, separate from Bali, Indonesia. But the Bali Turtle Island Development (BTID), one of the business enterprises belonging to the family of former president Soeharto, reclaimed the area in 1995 and 1996 as a tourist development.

Patut was one of the public figures in Serangan who opposed the megaproject, as it had a negative impact on locals, who until then had earned a living as fishermen, by damaging both the local economy and the environment.

“The fish disappeared, many coral reefs died. Some fishermen turned to collecting coral for a living,” he said, referring to an activity that is harmful to the environment.

In 2002, Patut started to transplant coral using the grafting technique, or planting coral seeds on substrates (where the coral grows, including dead coral). In attaching the “seeds”, Patut was helped by local youth groups, who later established the Karya Segara Beach Fishermen’s Group. They make small “stools” or plates from cement with metal or concrete frames to position the coral.

They have planted 32 species of corals, which are growing well across a 3.5-hectare area, according to Patut.

“Many fish have also started to come. What makes me happier is that since 2003 people have stopped collecting coral,” he said.
He is also glad because local customary rules have been revised, stipulating that people are obliged to help preserve the environment, especially coral reefs.

When Serangan becomes a marine tourism site, its long history will be an important story for tourists, while the main attraction will be the magnificent underwater coral reef garden.

Patut added that he has mapped out the route for visitors who are interested in snorkeling and diving. A glass boat will be available for those who do not dive.

It will start from the location outside the transplantation zone, where visitors will see the spread of destroyed coral. “It is a vast area. It is so sad to see it because it looks like a desert,” he said.

The journey will continue to the coral reef garden. Visitors will first see the young coral and the stools and plates that support them, before they are taken to see the adult ones surrounded by a range of species of fishes and other marine biota.

“This route will allow visitors to see the real underwater state of Serangan, coral that died because of natural causes or reclamation or because of people’s activities, collecting coral for commercial purposes,” he said.

He said he believed people’s hard work and strong commitment would lead to the existence of a coral reef garden with ecological and economic benefits.

But, he stressed, it was not about the money. For this reason, he plans to limit the number of participants in each underwater tour. “In a day, we will allow only 10 to 15 people to prevent any impression that we are exploiting or commercializing it,” he said. The aim of the policy is to protect the coral’s growth and to prevent any potential harmful impact from the tourists.

He also said he was determined to avoid any interference by investors, especially the BTID. “We have quite a lot of experience, so we will be more careful about the persuasion of investors, even though we are in need of money. We won’t let them cheat us again.”

He said the planned tourism development required not only equipment such as a boat and snorkeling and diving equipment but also guides who have diving certificates and can speak foreign languages, at least English.

Local people, he said, would be able to do everything and would be managed by the traditional village authorities. “We want to create our own jobs to earn a living, so there won’t be any moral duty to any party, and we won’t be under their command.”

According to head of Kaja hamlet in Serangan, Ketut Pusara, local people now have a greater awareness about the environment. For example, he said, those who used to make money by collecting coral now become fishermen.

“In the past, many people used coral to build houses or temples. But not anymore,” he said, “We agree to the tourism development plan as long as it is good, for us and for the environment in Serangan.”

Patut added that he had set a target of completing the coral transplantation on the 8-hectare area by 2015, considering the limited funding and human resources.

He is relying on the support of the government and NGOs for the coral cuttings and the procurement of a place to grow them. Patut and a group of local youths will look after planting and maintaining the coral voluntarily; the only money they might receive will be a meal allowance.
By his calculations, people’s volunteer contributions were worth Rp 5 billion. “This was calculated from making the plates to the plantation and the maintenance,” said Patut. He has also formed a special team providing coral-planting services, called the Working Group for Bali Coral Reef Conservation. The group has served several clients in Bali and other islands.

He said the group had provided 200,000 seeds for the coral transplantation in Serangan. The market price of an 8-centimeter coral seed, under special permit from Natural Resources Conservation Office (BKSDA), is anywhere between US$6 and $15. But Patut said they still needed seeds to expand the coral reef garden, adding that tourists might later be involved in the plantation project by putting their names to a special plate, for a fee.

Marine tourism activities at Serangan will be priced affordably.

Visitors will be able to rent a boat for Rp 250,000 per trip and scuba equipment for Rp 100,000 per person. The fee for hiring a guide is Rp 100,000. Tourists will also be invited to see the economic activities of fishermen at Karya Segara beach. The fishermen, who are part of a savings and credit cooperative, which has about 40 members, sell soft coral to several countries. Patut said that soft coral harms other types of coral, and so collecting it supported the efforts to preserve the coral reef garden. The group also cultivates aquarocks, or rocks to decorate aquariums.

The process of making such rocks is similar to that for making the plates or stools for the coral reefs garden, using cements and filler.
The rocks are then planted in the sea so that sea biota, a kind of algae, grows on them. After between three and six months, they can be harvested and sold for about Rp 8,000 per kilogram.

Patut said many visitors from various areas had come to Serangan to learn about coral transplantation. They included government officials who wanted develop similar projects in their regions and high school students who came for their scientific projects.

D-8 will be organizing a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event will be held during the World Ocean Conference that will be attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May, 2009 in the same place.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Expansion of fish trading ports in Indonesia has intensified further fisheries trade between the two countries

The Indonesian province of Aceh fishermen have in the past few months been exporting their fishes to Malaysia directly and have found this more profitable than exporting via other regions, Indonesia’s Antara news agency reported.

“Over the past few months, fish traders in Meulaboh, West Aceh district, have begun exporting fish to Malaysia directly,” said Razali AR, head of Aceh’s marine and fisheries office, said here on Wednesday.

An agreement to sell fish to Malaysia directly was reached after Razali AR organised a meeting between Aceh fishermen and Malaysian traders in Malaysia.

By exporting fish directly to Malaysia, the prosperity of Acehnese fishermen who still depend on traditional fishing methods could be further improved, he said.

Previously, Acehnese fishermen sold their catch to neighbouring provinces like North Sumatra. But selling fish to North Sumatra was too costly, thus causing the fishermen to enjoy less profit.

“Step by step, the selling of fish to Medan could be reduced by exporting them (the fish) to Malaysia. Practically a chain of the fish selling will be shorter in addition to rendering more profit to the fishermen,” he said.

In addition, fish traders in Aceh and Malaysia are eased by the development of technology in a bid to know on line price of fish through the Internet.

The price of fish could directly monitored from ten areas in Aceh such Idi, Banda Aceh, Meulaboh and Labuhan Haji.

“We can also update the price of fish every day from other countries like Malaysia, Japan, Europe so that the price of fish can be transparently monitored especially certain fish,” he said.

D-8 will be organizing a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event will be held during the World Ocean Conference that will be attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May, 2009 in the same place.

Source: Antara, Bernama, various.

Pakistan Seafood Industries Association says exports to Malaysia, Indonesia, and southeast asian countries have virtually nullified the negative impact of EU ban

Pakistan’s fish exports increased by 21 per cent in value during the nine months of the current fiscal year despite a ban imposed by EU on import of fish from Pakistan in April 2007 on quality issues, as quoted by online media thedawn.com.

Besides, exports fetched average unit price (AUP) of fish to $1.707 per kg in July-March 2008-09 as compared to $1.6 per kg in the same period of last fiscal.

A total of 100,422 tons of fish were exported in the last nine months of current fiscal fetching $171.4 million as compared to 88,170 tons worth $141.5 million in the corresponding period of last year, showing increase of 14 per cent in quantity and 21 per cent in value, revealed figures of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS).

Director General Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) Mohammad Moazzam Khan linked the increase in fish exports mainly to rupee devaluation against the dollar and to higher prices from some Far Eastern countries.

He recalled that a ban was imposed by the European Union (EU) in view of 23 deficiencies identified by an EU mission during January 2007 at various stages from auction hall to processing units.

The country used to get higher price from the European buyers but exporters are now getting good price mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, he said.

On prospects of lifting of EU ban, Khan said that Livestock and Dairy Development Minister Humayun Aziz Kurd informed the National Assembly recently that efforts were underway to comply with the requirement of EU high quality standards and hopefully the ban would be lifted by August this year.

Chairman Pakistan Seafood Industries Association (PSIA) Faisal Iftikhar said that fisheries exports were suffering $100 million loss per annum due to the EU ban.

However, the situation has changed in the last one year. As many as 30 fish processing units had been set up at the Balochistan Coastal Highway (from Hub, Damm, Ormara, Pasni, Jevani and Gwadar) in the last one year with an investment of Rs100 million each.

He said these units were mainly exporting Indian Mackrel (local name is Bangra) to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. As many as 5,000 containers (with 27 tons load in each container) are being exported to these countries every year.

Iftikhar said that Bangra fish is now getting over double price from these countries owing to high demand. Exporters used to send it at 50 cents per kg but now are fetching $2 per kg. Exports to these countries had virtually nullified the negative impact of EU ban on exports, he added.

When asked as to when the EU would lift the ban as Pakistan’s name is not included in the list of inspection being taken by the EU during 2009 in various countries, the PSIA chairman said that processing units have met the EU quality standards now and other relevant sectors are ready for the inspection.

‘We want the government to dispatch an action plan by August to EU for inspection of the entire fisheries sector,’ he said adding that much depends on the federal government how it presents its case before the EU and get the ban removed.

He recalled that PSIA in the second week of this month had demanded replacement of former DG MFD Javed Ishrat with a competent officer having a technical background of handling fisheries sector and also to resolve the issue of EU ban. He said exporters would soon meet the new DG MFD to discuss the issues of ban.

Indonesian Fisheries Products Lures European Market

D-8 fishery products has huge potential to enter the EU market, as has been proven by Indonesia and Malaysia

Other D-8 member countries, such as Indonesia, is also having a good development in the sector. In the European Seafood Exhibition in Brussel recently, Indonesia hold the attention of European market, eventhough EU has set a number of regulation that set rules in IUU Fishing per January 2010, quoted by Indonesia news agency, Antara.

“In the expo, eight of our fishery entrepreuners and exporters have made deals that amounted up to 8 million US dollar,” an authority at the Indonesian embassy, PLE Priatna, said.

In between the expo, the organizer also held European Seafood ASEM Forum in Brussel, which was attended by various fisheries businessperson from diverse countries.

Indonesian ambassador for Belgium, Luxembourg, and EU, Nadjib Riphat Kesoema said that they the Indonesian fishery producers have done their best to improve the sector’s performance in the country, from regulatory issue to the operational setting in the field. This has lead to a positive response from the European market with the lifting of EU ban to Indonesia (Commission Directive 236 UE) recently.

“European market is quite opened for our products, and we notice that their demand is pretty high,” said Martani Husaini, from the Directorate General of Fisheries of Indonesia.

Indonesian attache of agriculture in Brussel, Edi Hartulistioso said that the Expo had done very well to re-penetrate the European market for Indonesian products dur to the quality and competitive prices. The image of Indonesia as archipelagos with thousands of islands and extensive ocean has also contributed positively to the market.

Malaysian Seafood Exports Resume to EU

From Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Malaysian news agency, BERNAMA, also reported that the export of seafood products from Malaysia to Europe is expected to resume this month, providing good news for local exporters.

Seafood products generate billions of ringgit annually and are considered as the second largest edible item exported by Malaysia, writes Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah for Bernama.

According to the news, ambassador and head of delegation of the European Commission in Malaysia, Vincent Piket, said in an effort to enable the trade to resume, inspectors from the EU Food and Veterinary Office carried out a review mission earlier this month.

He said the European Union (EU) worked in close collaboration with Malaysia’s Health Ministry, Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Ministry and Malaysian Fisheries Development Board to implement measures to address the food safety management and hygiene issues to comply with the EU’s requirements.

“The final results of the analysis are not yet available but I am hopeful that with the improvements introduced by the Malaysian authorities and the seafood industry, a significant part of the seafood trade can resume by end of May,” he said.

Prior to this, as quoted in the D-8 website, other encouraging news had came from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), who had commended the Islamic Republic of Iran for observing the global standards for fishing, calling Iran one of the developed countries in this regard, IRIB news agency reported.

FAO Assistant Director-General of Fisheries and Aquaculture Department Ichiro Nomura stated that Iran plays a crucial role in aquaculture and should be regarded as a role model for regional countries.

Due to its big potentials, fisheries is among programs that will be touched by D-8 framework of cooperation, which included in Food Security Program.

“We hope that Iran and Indonesia can lead the initiative to introduce the establishment of D-8 Working Group on Fisheries,” said Dipo Alam, Secretary General of D-8. He said that Iran plays a leading role as an advanced country in in fishery sector, as globally recognized by FAO.

He also brought to mind the visit he made to the Indonesian Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Freddy Numberi, last August. The meeting talked about the fisheries and maritime potency in D-8 countries. Minister Numberi supports the D-8 cooperation in this line, stating the fact that the group has a huge maritime and fertile potentials.

D-8 will be organizing a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event will be held during the World Ocean Conference that will be attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May, 2009 in the same place.

Source: DAWN, Antara, Bernama, various.

IMF report cited Egypt banks provision of liquidity and the lowering of interest rates, saying the reserve had "acted appropriately"

Egypt’s banks appear to be weathering the global financial storm far better than many of their regional and international counterparts, due not only to the reform efforts of the Central Bank but also to the underlying strength and prudent management of domestic banks. The Egyptian Central Bank and its policies received special mention in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, issued in mid-April, praising it for moving to cushion the impact of the global crisis. In particular, the IMF report cited the bank’s provision of liquidity and the lowering of interest rates, saying the reserve had “acted appropriately.”

That appropriate action included cutting overnight lending rates to 12 percent in late March, thus making capital more accessible to private banks in a bid to stimulate lending. The reduction followed a cut in interest rates in February of 100 basis points, reversing a series of increases aimed at curbing inflationary pressures.

Among the longer-term measures promoted by the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance was a consolidation of the financial sector, through the raising of the capital requirements of banks and the privatization of a number of state-owned institutions. This brought about a series of mergers in the sector, with the number of banks falling from more than 60 nine years ago to just 40 today.

Though the Central Bank has cuts its rates, it still has to be wary of increasing liquidity to the point where it starts to overheat domestic demand. Inflation has been a massive issue for Egypt, and while it fell from 22 percent in July last year to 11.6 percent at the end of March, the reserve has to tread a fine line between stimulating the economy, providing it with the liquidity to maintain growth, and over-priming the pump.

After its latest rates cut, on March 27, the Central Bank warned that inflation had not yet been fully brought under control.

“It is important to emphasize that the sharp retrenchment in international commodity prices, which had begun in the second half of 2008, has not been fully reflected in domestic price levels due to the downward price rigidities in domestic markets,” the bank said in a statement announcing the rates reduction.

While Egypt is faring better than most in these turbulent times, the Central Bank also noted that the slowing global economy could have “unfavorable repercussions on the domestic growth outlook.”

Though the Egyptian economy is expected to grow at a comparatively healthy rate in 2009, with the IMF predicting GDP to expand by 3.6 percent, this is still just half of the growth rate of the preceding two years. This deceleration will affect Egypt’s banks, with applications for loans and export credits already dropping, according to Salwa El Antari, the general manager of the National Bank of Egypt’s research department.

“There is slower lending activity not merely because it is becoming harder to find creditworthy clients, but there is also less demand for loans to expand or open new businesses,” she said in an interview with the local press on April 23.

Egypt’s banks have also benefited from their low exposure to the toxic asset market, with most institutions focusing on domestic investments and thus avoiding any involvement in risky instruments like derivatives and securitized bonds.

This prudent approach was highlighted in a report released in February by Global Investment House, the Kuwait-based financial services company, which said that while a slowdown of the Egyptian economy could pose risks to the local banking sector through a rise in loan defaults, the general outlook for the market was positive.

“With the banking sector being primarily influenced by the economic status of the country, we maintain a stable outlook for the industry in 2009,” the report said.

The global recession has certainly not slowed interest in Egypt’s banking sector from abroad either, with Dubai’s Mashreq Bank becoming the latest entrant to the market, launching retail operations at 10 branches on April 1.
Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, Mashreq’s chief executive, said there was great potential for banking service penetration in the country.

“We believe that Egypt is the ideal platform to grow our business regionally,” he said. “The Egyptian banking sector is a key player in the growth of the country’s economy, especially in light of the remarkable GDP growth that has averaged 7 percent over the last two years.”
The slowdown of the Egyptian economy has meant that Mashreq is taking a slightly more cautious approach than previously planned, but overall Egypt’s banks should remain in positive territory this year buoyed by effective government regulation and monetary intervention. There will be less black in the ledgers over the coming year, but the inherent strength of the country’s financial system should ensure that very little red appears.

Malaysia holds key interest rate at 2%

Malaysia’s central bank kept its key interest rate at 2.0 percent Wednesday, saying the economy is expected to contract markedly in the first quarter of the year.

Malaysia’s Bank Negara said poor global economic conditions were adversely affecting Malaysia’s key exports and industrial production, in turn hitting the labour market and private sector activity. “The economy, therefore, is expected to record a marked contraction in the first quarter of 2009 (in upcoming results). These conditions are expected to prevail until the second quarter of the year,” it added.

However, the bank said it would not adjust the interest rate as the present monetary policy measures were “sufficient to provide support to domestic demand.” Bank Negara said the domestic economy was expected to improve in the second half of 2009, “supported by stabilisation in global economic conditions and the larger impetus from the implementation of the fiscal stimulus measures.”

D-8 organization is holding the 27th commissioners’ meeting in June 2009, where among the agenda are to provide opinions and experiences sharing platform among member countries on how to cope with the current financial crisis. D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, said that there should also be another D-8 Central Bank Governors meeting such as held three years ago in Indonesia to further strenghten the outcome of the discussion of monetary and banking policies through fiscal packages in D-8 member countries.