Love Domestic Products

Some time ago President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo made a remark that caused quite a stir and became a trending topic in several media outlets, both conventional and especially online media, in which he told the Indonesian people to “hate foreign products”.

Some circles have supported his statement, but many others have questioned it, even in a scornful tone, objecting to the word “hate”. In fact, if we examine it with a clear mind, the spirit of the word is to love and prioritize the use of domestic products.

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The word “hate” was used as an emphasis and should unnecessarily be interpreted literally. Not only the President, most people know that in the modern economy, especially in a world that follows the free trade policy, the entry and exit of goods are inevitable; we export some goods and import others.

The exception is when future technology enables some of the crops to flourish in the country.

We need a lot of imported goods, meaning foreign products, for the economy and the fulfillment of people’s necessities, such as equipment and spare parts, as well as basic industrial materials that cannot be produced at home. For instance, cotton for textile production is not locally produced. Likewise, the staple food of the common people, like tempeh, tofu, soy sauce, and oncom in West Java, use soybeans, which we have to import. The same is true of the very popular food among low-income communities, noodles, and among the more established, bread, which are made from wheat flour, which can never be produced in Indonesia. The exception is when future technology enables some of the crops to flourish in the country.

Even rice, sugar, salt and garlic still have to be imported to meet domestic needs. Formerly, in the New Order period, we achieved rice self-sufficiency. Today, Indonesia is one of the largest rice importing countries in the world.

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There are many other examples outside agriculture: in industry, transportation and pharmacy, various kinds of equipment, spare parts and basic materials are still imported. We understand all this and certainly so does the President. What we want and have to keep reminding people: Never chose foreign products over those that are domestically produced, or even further, products that have the potential to be locally made but the practice of importing them hampers their growth. In such a case, we should restrain the desire to import and allow the chance for domestic production to grow. We can euphemistically use the term “hate” or “forbid” foreign goods as the opposite to the word “love” or “permit” domestic products.

KOMPAS/IQBAL BASYARI

Dozens of East Javanese people demonstrate in front of the East Java Governor\'s Office in Surabaya on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. They expressed their opposition to the rice import policy when the harvest period was approaching as they considered it to be detrimental to farmers.

I’ve had a personal experience as one entrusted to perform the mission in the 1980s as deputy minister for the increased use of domestic products and concurrently head of the Investment Coordinating Board. The campaign for the use of domestic products at the time was naturally based on economic interests, which were acquiring added value, expanding employment and building strong foundations for production promotion and national spending.

Independence

However, the basic concept actually went even farther, which was to foster independence. In the Opinion section of this daily, I have analyzed independence as the basic understanding in developing not only the economy but also the nation’s character. I wish to repeat it for the present generation.

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Independence is the essence of freedom, which is the right of every nation to determine its own fate and do what’s best for itself. Therefore, development as an effort to substantiate freedom should also be an endeavor to build independence.

The concept of independence, essentially, is not seclusion and isolation. In this way, the issue of independence is not based on the paradigm of dependence widely discussed among others in Latin American countries in the 1950a and 1960s. This concept had already caused developmental failures and bankruptcies in many countries at that time.

Independence recognizes the inevitable interdependent condition in social life, both in a country and in a community of nations. The problem of independence arises because of the ever-present interdependent condition. Independence is thus a proactive understanding, rather than a reactive or defensive one.

A nation is said to be more independent when it is more capable of realizing it is on a par with other nations.

Independence constitutes a dynamic concept because it recognizes that life and the interdependent condition are always changing in their constellations, balances and values that form their bases and influence them. A nation is said to be more independent when it is more capable of realizing it is on a par with other nations.

Although progress and independence reflect a nation’s economic advancement, they are not solely an economic concept. Progress and independence are also reflected in all aspects of life, in institutions,

systems and values that that form the basis of political and social lives. More fundamentally, independence reflects the attitude of a person or a nation toward oneself/itself, its society and its spirit in responding to challenges.

As it involves attitude, independence is basically a cultural issue. Loving domestic products, therefore, reflects the culture of an independent society.

In brief, in the economic sector, independence is reflected in a nation’s capacity to optimally meet its needs, goods, as well as services, in an independent way. And to this end, a condition enabling the development of capacity has to be created. In this manner, building a strong national business ranking becomes very strategic in this concept of independence.

Various instruments of protection were applied in the past to utilize the fairly large and growing domestic market in order to promote national industrial growth. Not only manufacturing products, diverse products of agriculture and services were also developing those days.

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The growing national potential at the time already served as the nation’s capital and later further developed when opportunities were more widely open in the next phases of development. Through deregulation, protection granted by the government was gradually reduced. Its results can be noticed in what we have owned at present.

Kompas/Priyombodo

Activists check rice imported from Vietnam with State Logistics Agency (Bulog) labels on it from Singapore Bulker ship at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta on Wednesday (14/2). The imported rice is brought to the Bulog Jakarta-Banten Storehouse in Kelapa Gading. As much as 281,000 tons of imported rice has arrived at some ports across the country.

In practice, the protection path can no longer be adopted in this era of economic globalization and free trade. This is because apart from opening the doors to economic rent, protection can be retaliated by closing our exports or imposing countervailing duty.

Love the nation and its products

The main path is now a public campaign for the use of domestic products as an expression of love for the nation and state, a manifestation of idealism and patriotism in the peaceful period and development era.

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The slogan “Love the Nation, Love Its Products” was formerly used. This method is in face value the most appropriate to build the national economy on the basis of the nation’s sustainable production capacity. Such a public spirit, which is to choose out of awareness, will be more lasting and effective than restricting the choice of consumers.

For instance, the culture of love of and pride in national products is shown by the Japanese. Owing to their reluctance to use imported goods and under international pressure, the Japanese government led by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone just campaigned for the use of foreign products. The Japanese even did this with great effort by starting to open the doors to foreign goods.

With this attitude, nobody will be blamed because it’s the right of consumers to choose what they want to buy.

Essentially, without having to use trade instruments, the Indonesian people should consciously, as part of their cultural expression, choose their own nation’s products. With this attitude, nobody will be blamed because it’s the right of consumers to choose what they want to buy. Government institutions, including state-owned enterprises (SOE) as a major domestic market and consumers of goods and services, also have the right to choose the products they will use.

KOMPAS/RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Sigit, 16, prepares garlic for sale at Jembatan Lima Market in Jakarta on Friday (14/9/2018). Although the rupiah’s exchange rate was affected by a stronger dollar, the price of imported garlic at the market remained stable at Rp 22,000 per kilogram.

Government institutions and SOEs should just be models and initiate the use of local products to meet their needs.

The national capacity and our level of welfare today are far better than in the past, as reflected among others in the gross domestic product and the ever-rising middle class.

On the other hand, the increasingly open economy has brought an influx of foreign products into our market, and the public has become less sensitive to the choice of either import goods or the nation’s own products. Domestic products are also hard to develop now because people don’t feel the need to prioritize national products. In other words, independence no longer becomes the elan of our life-building pursuit as a free nation.

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This is actually what we worry about and possibly aroused the concern of President Jokowi, who felt the need to make a strong appeal to revive the spirit of “Love the Nation, Love Its Products”, which represents the soul of independence as the essence of freedom.

Kompas

Ginandjar Kartasasmita

Ginandjar Kartasasmita, Deputy minister for increased use of domestic products, head of the investment coordinating board, 1983-1988

(This article was translated by Aris Prawira)