Doing Business In Indonesia

Indonesia: It's not all like this anymore.

Por: kekepana.com

Did you realize that the Jakarta metropolitan area is the world’s 4th largest, sporting more than 22 million people? Or that Indonesia is the world’s 18th largest economy? Indonesia’s economy has also stayed rather robust during the last few years of economic weakness, and some 60 million people are positioned to enter the ranks of the middle class in the next decade. Yet the country is only the #32 destination for U.S. exports, signaling that there may be room for improvement.

These were some of the points made at a Honolulu workshop last week, part of a series about doing business with the APEC economies staged by the Hawaii Pacific Export Council, the U.S. Commercial Service and a host of local and state agencies. A special sponsor was the newly formed Hawaii Indonesia Chamber of Commerce (HICHAM). The primary speaker was Michael Hogge, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s desk officer for Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. Michael is temporarily in Honolulu to help get ready for next month’s APEC summit. Amin Leiman, president of HICHAM, and David Day, HICHAM’s chairman, also chimed in.

Doing Business In Vietnam

Saigon has grown up (photo: Hanukikanker)

Por: kekepana.com

I’ll never forget my first impression of Hanoi: “This is like Taiwan, but thirty years earlier!” So much has changed since then – and so much has stayed the same. You see, my first visit to Hanoi was in 1995. President Clinton had ended the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam, and I was dispatched by the Commerce Department to look into how the U.S. Commercial Service could start work in the market before we even had an embassy. I checked out office space in Hanoi, visited Saigon and Vungtau, and was the first American diplomat to meet with Vietnam’s economic and industrial ministries. (Scott Marciel was with me. He’s now the American ambassador in Indonesia.) I found a Vietnam that had moved on from our war, that revered the quality of American products, and that wanted American investment – but only wanted one of everything. Most of that still holds true.