Agree, too bad GusDur lengser before he could make the formal bilateral trade agreemant with them.
Oh man dont raise your hope too high for our BUMN, it will take a decade or two to make them able to compete and exceed on what they do. Even the last colleague encounter with state owned cellular company showed how bad their way of doing business internally and how the people in their higher up rank think mostly on short term benefit just so the annual report can shine and they got good score from their big boss. Garuda youtube incident where their asosiasi karyawan file charges without permission nor even coordination with their own management is only the tip of iceberg I assume. Created by decades of missuse, miss manage, too close to politics, being sapi perah, posisi komisaris utk posisi tanda terima kasih dari favour politik, monopoly etc. Not all bumn is like that but just dont expect too much for now. I hope our future inhan holding will not becoming rosobo rusky
One thing people really need to understand is that SOEs are pretty much in every sector of the economy, in 2017 our GDP was slightly above 13 Quadrillion Rupiah (13 ribu T), and of that,
just the SOE income was 2 Quadrillion. If you add their indirect impact from employees, subsidiaries and sub-subsidieries, at least a third of the Indonesian economy is either directly represented or linked to SOEs.
As such, it need to be pointed out that the SOEs are a mixed, mixed bag.
Note that I'm not arguing with you Gundala, I just want to rant a bit because I need to put up with blind anti-BUMN rhetoric way too much at work.
I know SOEs in the some sectors, like plantations and agriculture (perkebunan) is downright feudal. Others, such as in the Reinsurance sectors, are not only the biggest players in the market, but are also the most
professional, leaving private & conglomerate owned competitors in the dust.
Even private companies have a lot of bad apples, the Bakrie conglomerate and its legendary mismanagement and inefficiency as the most prominent example. So yes they have issues, yes there is corruption, and yes there are inefficiencies. Despite that, I hope everyone can take a step back and realise that the private sector is plague by the same bloody problems, at least SOEs don't just pay taxes, but also pays dividends to the Government, and is much, much, more reliable in executing state policy that the private sector is.
I hear so often that the property/engineering sector is becoming dominated by SOEs. True and there's bloody good reason, way too much of state infrastructure projects basically languished away when in private hands, Becakayu Toll road for example. The SOEs took up the task and delivered damn it, we actually have the infrastructure to show for it. Now many developers trust SOE construction companies more than private ones simply because the SOEs
are more experienced, professional, and able to handle large projects.
Look at the American military industrial complex... or the conglomerate lobbies that plague nearly every 1st world country. Private is not equal to honest. Not equal to efficient. Not equal to innovative. Even in an ideal world, SOEs will never be quite as good as private companies in generating profits because they have objective 2: Assist state policy.
Indonesia's SOEs, flawed as they are, have overall delivered on objective 1 & 2 at the same time. The Construction SOEs have lead the infrastructure push despite dealing with rapid expansion of... everything. The Banking SOEs have managed to push the GPN card to a third of all debit cards nationally despite initial strong resistance from Visa and Mastercard. They are also the companies that are pioneering our rejuvenated economic influence in Africa. Their profit has also increased to 200 Trillion IDR in 2018, a nearly 40% increase in only 4 years.
As such, yes, our SOEs aren't perfect. But lets not be pessimistic to their potential and blind to the good they've already done for Indonesia.
-END RANT-
