To tell the truth, after Fauzi Bowo has been in office for two years, things are apparently not progressing, but not getting worse either. Things seem to have remained the same as before. For instance in traffic jams, criminal acts and robberies, not to mention poverty and management of street children, begging, etc.
In terms of international image, since 2006 Jakarta has become the location of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) that conducts surveys on the Ease of Doing Business. Jakarta was chosen by the IFC because it is the busiest city in terms of capital inflow from overseas and the site of multinational corporations, as well as large domestic and foreign companies operating in Indonesia.
In September 2006, the IFC ranked Indonesia at 135th among 175 countries surveyed. It prompted Vice President Jusuf Kalla to take action by ordering the State Minister for Administrative Reforms to improve public services, especially with regard to the ease of licensing. Together with officials of the Investment Coordinating Board, a team was established to find out the reasons why Indonesia's position was so bad.
From the end of 2006 up until early 2007, many institutions related to investment had been urged to improve their regulations, and beginning in mid June 2007, regulations were issued one by one. Fortunately, the Indonesia's rank in the 2007 IFC survey improved, moving to 123rd among 178 countries surveyed. Not long after Fauzi took office in 2007 he issued Gubernatorial Decree No. 112/2007 on One-Stop Services for Investment and established the Jakarta Investment Office in the hope of making the investment climate more conducive.
However, Fauzi's decree lacked implementing regulations, resulting in the stagnation of the investment climate in Jakarta - as proven by the IFC's 2008 survey announcement ranking Indonesia 127th among 181 countries, and then in September 2009, the IFC's survey ranked Indonesia slightly better with at 122nd among 183 countries surveyed.
These all show that Jakarta's public services, especially with regard to the ease of doing business, have to be improved to match Vietnam (for example), which ranks 92nd, Malaysia 13th, Thailand at 32nd and Singapore at the top.
Three more years is enough for him to make radical improvements in public services, so he doesn't need to spend much money to promote himself among Jakartans if he wants to run for a second term once Jakarta's image has improved domestically as well as internationally.
M. Rusdi
Jakarta
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