A show for their money, that’s what 32 participants got Wednesday night April, 30th 2008, when the Indonesian Norwegian Business Council (INBC) and the Danish Business Association (DBA) held their first joint event, according to Michael Lundager, Chairman of the Danish part of the cooperation.
The event was partly influenced by the fact that Jakarta experienced very heavy tropical rain in the hours before the start. That meant a 1½ hour delay of the event as well as a lot of cancellations from members of the organizations that were already signed up.
A trip that usually takes less than 1 hour ended up taking 3½ hours, so people who cancelled are definitely excused, the traffic situation was unfortunately really terrible.
However, the 32 participant that made it to the World Trade Center where the event took place got a show for their money.
The speaker, Dr. Chatib Basri, Director of the Institute for Economic and Social Research, financial advisor for the president, consultant for the World Bank and a number of other honourable positions, gave a very insightful and informative speech on topics like Indonesian national financial key figures, corruption, infrastructure, legal issues, the USA recession’s influence in Indonesia and the next political steps taken from the government.
As a matter of fact one of the subjects, which were limiting the subsidiaries on gasoline prices were put into action on TV by the Indonesian president as Dr. Basri spoke – that caused a large demonstration in Jakarta today, Michael Lundager say.
The speech was followed up by dinner, question and answers and small talk over the tables.
All in all in spite of the traffic problems that influenced the event quite a bit, the gathering was a large success that will be followed up by new joint events between INBC and DBA every second month in the future. INBC and DBA will also be working closely together on other issues i.e. web site development.
