Cooperative Indonesia "Poor" International Business Cooperation

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - Cooperatives in Indonesia is still considered "poor" in terms of establishing international business cooperation potential and expand marketing network of cooperative efforts.

"Cooperatives us minus antarkoperasi cooperation abroad. Many successful cooperatives operating in the country of origin as a local community ownership model, but be absorbing profit corporation in our country merely as a market and only a handful of entrepreneurs benefit agent alone," said Suroto cooperative economic observers on Tuesday.

He said the fact cooperatives that have large organizations worldwide are bound by the principle of cooperation among cooperatives or seventh principle of the principle of cooperation as defined in the International Co-operative Identity Statement (ICIS) which was signed in Manchester in 1995 and used as a reference for cooperative work the whole world.

Unfortunately, according to him, the regulation in Indonesia is not easy to establish direct cooperation to the international business but just a lot of regulations discriminated against legal entities cooperatives.

"Investment Law we actually works in reverse. The co-operative companies should only be operated in the form of the company in Indonesia," he said.

He argues in Indonesian regulations regarding cooperatives or less are not in accordance with the highest 1945 constitution.

"Investment Law and we need to be revised so that we can lift our cooperative to the international business arena," he said.

The government in this case the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs said he expected to be a hub for the benefit of cooperation among cooperatives with cooperative abroad.

It needs to be done before the implementation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC).

"The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs will be very strategic role that can encourage this initiative to bring symbiotic mutualism between cooperative businesses, especially in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.

He added that the cooperative movement in the world who are affiliated organization the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) has released 300 large cooperative with world-class business round reached 2.205 billion US dollars, equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Spain.

"Of the 300 large cooperatives have many more things to sell products and also operates in Indonesia such as ACE Hardware, Rabobank, Land O`Lakes, Fontera, Campina, Sunkist and much more," he said.

Suroto said the world-class enterprises in the country and in fact is a cooperative owned by its members on a massive scale.

As Ace Hardware for example, in his home country the United States are owned by the network of artisans, while Rabobank, in his native Netherlands, the bank is owned by its customers.

Fontera owned by the cooperative dairy farmers in New Zealand.

"Co-operatives in the country is becoming a tool for creating a fair system of revenue sharing for community members. But unfortunately, in Indonesia they just work together in the interests of business with the individual entrepreneur or operate as a corporation in the form of state-owned," he said.

Therefore, he lamented that despite the world-class cooperative operating in Indonesia can not generate revenue for public distribution in the country.

"But instead of our society just as the market and become a contributor to the company's profits for the benefits enjoyed by the people of their members in their home country," he said. (MFD)