Pada awal bangsa ini mulai berdiri, Presiden Soekarno pernah menyatakan agar bangsa ini terus berdiri tegak sejajar dengan bangsa lain yang dibutuhkan adalah tiga pusaka yang dikenal dengan trisakti. Salah satu yang menarik untuk dilihat adalah Ekonomi Berdikari. Kalau kita ingin berdaulat secara ekonomi maka kita harus mengembangkan ekonomi yang mengandalkan bangsa sendiri atau berdiri di atas kaki sendiri begitulah kira-kira pernyataan Bung Karno mengenai ekonomi berdikari. Cerita itu mulai kabur sejak pemerintahan Soekarno jatuh. Ekonomi berdikari dianggap kuno dan ditinggalkan, pengalaman empiriknya adalah ketika Soeharto berkuasa, minyak yang digunakan sebagai sumber energi dan sumber penerimaan utama negara waktu itu merupakan celah awal masuknya modal dan perusahaan asing. Perusahaan minyak asing pun tidak segan-segan menambah modal kerjanya secara besar-besaran masuk ke Indonesia.
Fenomena boom minyak tahun 1970an seolah menjadi semacam jaminan bagi modal yang mereka tanamkan di Indonesia ataupun yang diutangkan kepada pemerintah Indonesia. Sebagaian dari proyek asing tersebut memang berfungsi memperlancar operasi industri minyak di Indonesia, misalnya berkaitan dengan infrastruktur listrik (jalan, telekomunikasi, pembangkit listrik) dan nonfisik (ketersediaan tenaga kerja yang dibutuhkan, kelancaran mekanisme perdagangan luar negeri dan modernisasi perbankan).
Jika cerita berhenti sampai di situ, maka kita bisa membayangkan suatu negara dengan perekonomian yang tumbuh pesat, kemudian rakyat yang menjadi semakin makmur dan sejahtera. Masuknya investasi asing akan membuka lapangan kerja baru yang luas dan kesempatan untuk transfer teknologi demi kemajuan bangsa di kemudian hari. Dengan utang luar negeri, kita bisa memulai proyek-proyek besar kita sendiri yang hasilnya nanti tidak hanya bisa dipakai untuk melunasi utang tetapi menyediakan generasi berikut suatu infrastruktur produksi yang handal, dengan perbaikan dunia pendidikan tinggi yang meskipun awalnya terkait dengan kebutuhan perusahaan (modal) asing, pada akhirnya tetap akan bermanfaat bagi bangsa sendiri.
Namun, itu semua hanya utopia belaka. Sampai dengan saat ini, kenyataan yang terjadi tidaklah seperti demikian, bangsa kita terus terpuruk dengan banyaknya modal asing yang masuk. Cardozo dalam teorinya mengatakan modal asing justru menimbulkan para kompador-komprador baru yang justru banyak merugikan bangsa sendiri.
Menolak modal asing sama sekali bukanlah hal yang bijak. Hal yang kita perlukan adalah bagaimana mencegah pengaruh modal asing tersebut tidak sampai mencabut kedaulatan ekonomi bangsa. Bangsa ini dengan segala kekayaan alam yang terkandung di dalamnya bukanlah ditakdirkan untuk menjadi budak bagi bangsa lain. Bangsa yang hanya menjadi tamu di negeri sendiri.
Dengan berbagai modal dan bantuan asing harusnya kita bisa belajar banyak dan tidak hanya sekadar menjadi boneka dari segala kepentingan asing yang dibalut dengan manisnya. Sehingga, cita-cita the Founding Father untuk menciptakan negara yang berdikari dapat terwujud.
Kamis, 23 Oktober 2008
Rabu, 16 Juli 2008
The domino effect
Many currencies that are backed by a current-account deficit are now falling just as the dollar has
ACCORDING to economic textbooks, the currencies of economies with large current-account deficits should depreciate relative to those of countries with surpluses. This will stimulate their exports and curb imports, thereby helping to slim the trade gaps. America has the world’s biggest current-account deficit and the dollar has dutifully been falling since 2002. Oddly, however, the currencies of many other countries with large deficits had enjoyed big gains until recently. Now, at last, currency markets have started to see sense.
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland all have large current-account deficits (along with many other American-style excesses, such as housing and credit booms). Yet over several years until mid-2007, their currencies perversely rose relative to those of economies, such as Japan and Switzerland, with big surpluses. For example, despite a current-account surplus of 4.9% of GDP last year, one of the biggest of any developed economy, Japan’s trade-weighted exchange rate sank by 13% from the end of 2002 to mid-2007. New Zealand, where the deficit reached 8% of GDP (bigger than America’s deficit of 6% of GDP at its peak), saw its currency gain 28% over the same period.
This paradox is the result of the “carry trade”, a popular currency strategy that partly explains why trade flows are now dwarfed by cross-border capital flows. In a world of low interest rates, international investors were hungry for yield, and so piled into currencies that offered higher interest rates, namely those of Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland, as well as many emerging markets. Those higher interest rates paid by countries with large external deficits were supposed to compensate investors for the risk of currency depreciation. But as investors borrowed in low-interest currencies, such as the yen, to invest in high-yielding ones, this made the latter currencies stronger. That, in turn, prolonged global imbalances by making it easier for profligate countries to finance their current-account deficits.
But since the eruption of global financial turmoil last year and the dwindling appetite for risk, carry trades have started to unwind and it has become harder to finance deficits. As a result, current-account imbalances are once again exerting a powerful influence over currencies. The chart shows that the weakest currencies this year have been in countries with deficits, from Britain to South Africa. In contrast, the yen and the Swiss franc have perked up. The same chart a year or so ago would have shown virtually the opposite relationship.
Increased concern about current-account deficits is also causing investors to discriminate much more between emerging markets. A popular argument in recent years has been that developing economies are less risky because, unlike a decade ago, they are no longer dependent on foreign capital. It is true that emerging economies are forecast to have a combined current-account surplus of more than $800 billion this year, but this is more than accounted for by China, Russia and the Gulf oil exporters. In fact over half of the 25 biggest emerging economies now have deficits. South Korea is running a deficit after a decade of surpluses. Brazil has also moved back into the red, despite record high prices for its commodity exports. Others such as India, South Africa and Turkey have had external deficits for many years.
Sticking to our “mercantilist” guns
In an article last November, The Economist ranked 15 of the biggest emerging economies according to their economic riskiness. Based on the size of external and budget deficits, inflation rates and the pace of growth in bank lending, India, Turkey and Hungary were deemed to be most vulnerable. The ranking attracted a lot of flak in India. An article in the Times of India accused The Economist of “mercantilist thinking at its worst” by treating a current-account surplus as good, a deficit bad. Agreed, a current-account deficit is not necessarily bad: an economy may be borrowing from abroad to finance investment that will lift future growth. Nevertheless, a large deficit does mean that an economy and its currency may struggle if foreign-capital inflows suddenly dry up.
And this is what has happened. This year foreign capital has gone into reverse at the same time as India’s current-account deficit has widened sharply. Sharmila Whelan, an economist at CLSA, a brokerage firm, forecasts that India’s current-account deficit will rise to almost 4% of GDP in the current fiscal year, and to 5.5% next year. Not only is the trade deficit soaring, largely as a result of higher oil prices; the overseas earnings of Indian IT services companies (two-fifths of which come from the financial sector) are likely to shrink this year.
The nature of the capital inflows financing a deficit also matters. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is less volatile than speculative capital inflows. If we assume that net FDI continues at last year’s pace, then it would more than finance the expected current-account deficits in Brazil and Mexico this year. In contrast, net FDI might finance less than one-third of India’s deficit and only one-sixth of South Africa’s, implying that their currencies are more at risk. The rupee has fallen by almost 10% against the dollar since late last year. Ms Whelan forecasts that it will drop by another 9% by March 2009.
Central banks in the developing world are now worried that falling currencies will exacerbate inflationary pressures. A year ago most emerging economies were intervening heavily to hold their currencies down; now many in Asia, including India, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, are having to sell dollars to prop their exchange rates up. The prime exception is China, where hot money continues to pour in and where the current account has a massive surplus.
The longer that international investors remain risk-averse, the more attention they are likely to pay to current-account imbalances. A few currencies seem to have been overlooked: those of Australia, Poland and Hungary have so far held up surprisingly well, despite their gaping external deficits. All three now look overvalued. They could be the next dominoes to fall.
ACCORDING to economic textbooks, the currencies of economies with large current-account deficits should depreciate relative to those of countries with surpluses. This will stimulate their exports and curb imports, thereby helping to slim the trade gaps. America has the world’s biggest current-account deficit and the dollar has dutifully been falling since 2002. Oddly, however, the currencies of many other countries with large deficits had enjoyed big gains until recently. Now, at last, currency markets have started to see sense.
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland all have large current-account deficits (along with many other American-style excesses, such as housing and credit booms). Yet over several years until mid-2007, their currencies perversely rose relative to those of economies, such as Japan and Switzerland, with big surpluses. For example, despite a current-account surplus of 4.9% of GDP last year, one of the biggest of any developed economy, Japan’s trade-weighted exchange rate sank by 13% from the end of 2002 to mid-2007. New Zealand, where the deficit reached 8% of GDP (bigger than America’s deficit of 6% of GDP at its peak), saw its currency gain 28% over the same period.
This paradox is the result of the “carry trade”, a popular currency strategy that partly explains why trade flows are now dwarfed by cross-border capital flows. In a world of low interest rates, international investors were hungry for yield, and so piled into currencies that offered higher interest rates, namely those of Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland, as well as many emerging markets. Those higher interest rates paid by countries with large external deficits were supposed to compensate investors for the risk of currency depreciation. But as investors borrowed in low-interest currencies, such as the yen, to invest in high-yielding ones, this made the latter currencies stronger. That, in turn, prolonged global imbalances by making it easier for profligate countries to finance their current-account deficits.
But since the eruption of global financial turmoil last year and the dwindling appetite for risk, carry trades have started to unwind and it has become harder to finance deficits. As a result, current-account imbalances are once again exerting a powerful influence over currencies. The chart shows that the weakest currencies this year have been in countries with deficits, from Britain to South Africa. In contrast, the yen and the Swiss franc have perked up. The same chart a year or so ago would have shown virtually the opposite relationship.
Increased concern about current-account deficits is also causing investors to discriminate much more between emerging markets. A popular argument in recent years has been that developing economies are less risky because, unlike a decade ago, they are no longer dependent on foreign capital. It is true that emerging economies are forecast to have a combined current-account surplus of more than $800 billion this year, but this is more than accounted for by China, Russia and the Gulf oil exporters. In fact over half of the 25 biggest emerging economies now have deficits. South Korea is running a deficit after a decade of surpluses. Brazil has also moved back into the red, despite record high prices for its commodity exports. Others such as India, South Africa and Turkey have had external deficits for many years.
Sticking to our “mercantilist” guns
In an article last November, The Economist ranked 15 of the biggest emerging economies according to their economic riskiness. Based on the size of external and budget deficits, inflation rates and the pace of growth in bank lending, India, Turkey and Hungary were deemed to be most vulnerable. The ranking attracted a lot of flak in India. An article in the Times of India accused The Economist of “mercantilist thinking at its worst” by treating a current-account surplus as good, a deficit bad. Agreed, a current-account deficit is not necessarily bad: an economy may be borrowing from abroad to finance investment that will lift future growth. Nevertheless, a large deficit does mean that an economy and its currency may struggle if foreign-capital inflows suddenly dry up.
And this is what has happened. This year foreign capital has gone into reverse at the same time as India’s current-account deficit has widened sharply. Sharmila Whelan, an economist at CLSA, a brokerage firm, forecasts that India’s current-account deficit will rise to almost 4% of GDP in the current fiscal year, and to 5.5% next year. Not only is the trade deficit soaring, largely as a result of higher oil prices; the overseas earnings of Indian IT services companies (two-fifths of which come from the financial sector) are likely to shrink this year.
The nature of the capital inflows financing a deficit also matters. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is less volatile than speculative capital inflows. If we assume that net FDI continues at last year’s pace, then it would more than finance the expected current-account deficits in Brazil and Mexico this year. In contrast, net FDI might finance less than one-third of India’s deficit and only one-sixth of South Africa’s, implying that their currencies are more at risk. The rupee has fallen by almost 10% against the dollar since late last year. Ms Whelan forecasts that it will drop by another 9% by March 2009.
Central banks in the developing world are now worried that falling currencies will exacerbate inflationary pressures. A year ago most emerging economies were intervening heavily to hold their currencies down; now many in Asia, including India, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, are having to sell dollars to prop their exchange rates up. The prime exception is China, where hot money continues to pour in and where the current account has a massive surplus.
The longer that international investors remain risk-averse, the more attention they are likely to pay to current-account imbalances. A few currencies seem to have been overlooked: those of Australia, Poland and Hungary have so far held up surprisingly well, despite their gaping external deficits. All three now look overvalued. They could be the next dominoes to fall.
Rabu, 04 Juni 2008
Doha Dilemma
Does freer farm trade help poor people?
THE global food crisis has shone a harsh spotlight on the consequences of government meddling in agriculture. Poor people go hungry, in part, because Americans pay their farmers to divert crops from food to fuel. But in at least two areas, the crisis has emboldened those who are sceptical of free markets in food.
The first is “food security”. Politicians in rich and poor countries have seized on recent price spikes as proof that free farm trade is a risky business and self-sufficiency a worthy goal. The second area concerns the poor. For years reformers have advocated freer trade on the grounds that market distortions, particularly the rich world's subsidies, depress prices and hurt rural areas in poor countries, where three-quarters of the world's indigent live. The Doha round of trade talks is dubbed the “development round” in large part because of its focus on farms. But now high food prices are being blamed for hurting the poor (the topic of a big United Nations summit in Rome starting on June 3rd).
The argument for self-sufficiency is easiest to counter. Anyone who believes autarky is the route to food security should look at starving North Korea. In world markets trade barriers, not the lack of them, have exacerbated the mess. The commodities that have seen the biggest price spikes are those which tend to be traded least. Only 6% of global rice production, for instance, flows across borders. Unilateral export restrictions, such as those imposed by Vietnam and India, have made matters worse. Global supply is disrupted and domestic farmers discouraged from producing more. The route to deeper, less volatile markets lies through freer trade and fewer distortions. The notion that free trade precludes food security is plainly wrong-headed.
The links between trade, food prices and poverty reduction are more subtle. Different types of reform have diverse effects on prices. When countries cut their tariffs on farm goods, their consumers pay lower prices. In contrast, when farm subsidies are slashed, world food prices rise. The lavishness of farm subsidies means that the net effect of fully freeing trade would be to raise prices, by an average of 5.5% for primary farm products and 1.3% for processed goods, according to the World Bank.
These effects are still much smaller than recent food-price spikes, but would they, on balance, help or hurt the poor? In crude terms, food-exporting countries gain in the short term whereas net importers lose. Farmers are better off; those who buy their food fare worse. Although most of the world's poor live in rural areas, they are not, by and large, net food sellers. A forthcoming study* of nine poor countries by M. Ataman Aksoy and Aylin Isik-Dikmelik, two economists at the World Bank, shows that even in very rural countries, such as Bangladesh and Zambia, only one-fifth of households sell more food than they buy. That suggests the losers may outnumber winners.
But things are not so simple. The authors point out that net food buyers tend to be richer than net sellers, so high food prices, on average, transfer income from richer to poorer households. And prices are not the only route through which poverty is affected. Higher farm income boosts demand for rural labour, increasing wages for landless peasants and others who buy rather than grow their food. Several studies show this income effect can outweigh the initial price effect. Finally, the farm sector itself can grow. Decades of underinvestment in agriculture have left many poor countries reliant on imports: over time that can change.
The World Bank has often argued that the balance of all these factors is likely to be positive. Although freer farm trade—and higher prices—may raise poverty rates in some countries, it will reduce them in more. One much-cited piece of evidence is a study† by Thomas Hertel, Roman Keeney, Maros Ivanic and Alan Winters. This analysis simulated the effect of getting rid of all subsidies and barriers on global prices and trade volumes. It then mapped these results on to detailed household statistics in 15 countries, which between them covered 1 billion people. Fully free trade in farm goods would reduce poverty in 13 countries while raising it in two.
A question of numbers
But lately the bank seems to be taking a different line. Robert Zoellick, the bank's president, claims that the food-price crisis will throw 100m people below the poverty line, undoing seven years of progress. His figure comes from extrapolating the results of a different study** by Mr Ivanic and Will Martin, another World Bank economist. This study analyses the effects of more expensive staple foods on poverty by examining household surveys in nine countries. In seven cases, higher food prices meant more poverty. (Dani Rodrik, a blogging Harvard economist, was one of the first to highlight the tension between these studies.)
In fact, the bank's results are not as contradictory as they seem. The two studies are based on different sets of countries: only Peru, Zambia and Vietnam appear in both. And the gloomy analysis measures only the effect of pricier staple foods, whereas the other examines freer trade in all farm goods. Such trade brings broader benefits: even if higher prices for staples exacerbate poverty in some countries, at least in the short term, the effect may be outweighed by increased demand for other farm exports, such as processed goods, as rich countries cut tariffs.
These subtleties suggest two conclusions. First, the bank, and others, should beware sweeping generalisations about the impact of food prices on the poor. Second, the nature of trade reform matters. Removing rich-country subsidies on staple goods, the focus of much debate in the Doha round, may be less useful in the fight against poverty than cutting tariffs would be. The food-price crisis has not hurt the case for freer farm trade. But it has shown how important it is to get it right.
THE global food crisis has shone a harsh spotlight on the consequences of government meddling in agriculture. Poor people go hungry, in part, because Americans pay their farmers to divert crops from food to fuel. But in at least two areas, the crisis has emboldened those who are sceptical of free markets in food.
The first is “food security”. Politicians in rich and poor countries have seized on recent price spikes as proof that free farm trade is a risky business and self-sufficiency a worthy goal. The second area concerns the poor. For years reformers have advocated freer trade on the grounds that market distortions, particularly the rich world's subsidies, depress prices and hurt rural areas in poor countries, where three-quarters of the world's indigent live. The Doha round of trade talks is dubbed the “development round” in large part because of its focus on farms. But now high food prices are being blamed for hurting the poor (the topic of a big United Nations summit in Rome starting on June 3rd).
The argument for self-sufficiency is easiest to counter. Anyone who believes autarky is the route to food security should look at starving North Korea. In world markets trade barriers, not the lack of them, have exacerbated the mess. The commodities that have seen the biggest price spikes are those which tend to be traded least. Only 6% of global rice production, for instance, flows across borders. Unilateral export restrictions, such as those imposed by Vietnam and India, have made matters worse. Global supply is disrupted and domestic farmers discouraged from producing more. The route to deeper, less volatile markets lies through freer trade and fewer distortions. The notion that free trade precludes food security is plainly wrong-headed.
The links between trade, food prices and poverty reduction are more subtle. Different types of reform have diverse effects on prices. When countries cut their tariffs on farm goods, their consumers pay lower prices. In contrast, when farm subsidies are slashed, world food prices rise. The lavishness of farm subsidies means that the net effect of fully freeing trade would be to raise prices, by an average of 5.5% for primary farm products and 1.3% for processed goods, according to the World Bank.
These effects are still much smaller than recent food-price spikes, but would they, on balance, help or hurt the poor? In crude terms, food-exporting countries gain in the short term whereas net importers lose. Farmers are better off; those who buy their food fare worse. Although most of the world's poor live in rural areas, they are not, by and large, net food sellers. A forthcoming study* of nine poor countries by M. Ataman Aksoy and Aylin Isik-Dikmelik, two economists at the World Bank, shows that even in very rural countries, such as Bangladesh and Zambia, only one-fifth of households sell more food than they buy. That suggests the losers may outnumber winners.
But things are not so simple. The authors point out that net food buyers tend to be richer than net sellers, so high food prices, on average, transfer income from richer to poorer households. And prices are not the only route through which poverty is affected. Higher farm income boosts demand for rural labour, increasing wages for landless peasants and others who buy rather than grow their food. Several studies show this income effect can outweigh the initial price effect. Finally, the farm sector itself can grow. Decades of underinvestment in agriculture have left many poor countries reliant on imports: over time that can change.
The World Bank has often argued that the balance of all these factors is likely to be positive. Although freer farm trade—and higher prices—may raise poverty rates in some countries, it will reduce them in more. One much-cited piece of evidence is a study† by Thomas Hertel, Roman Keeney, Maros Ivanic and Alan Winters. This analysis simulated the effect of getting rid of all subsidies and barriers on global prices and trade volumes. It then mapped these results on to detailed household statistics in 15 countries, which between them covered 1 billion people. Fully free trade in farm goods would reduce poverty in 13 countries while raising it in two.
A question of numbers
But lately the bank seems to be taking a different line. Robert Zoellick, the bank's president, claims that the food-price crisis will throw 100m people below the poverty line, undoing seven years of progress. His figure comes from extrapolating the results of a different study** by Mr Ivanic and Will Martin, another World Bank economist. This study analyses the effects of more expensive staple foods on poverty by examining household surveys in nine countries. In seven cases, higher food prices meant more poverty. (Dani Rodrik, a blogging Harvard economist, was one of the first to highlight the tension between these studies.)
In fact, the bank's results are not as contradictory as they seem. The two studies are based on different sets of countries: only Peru, Zambia and Vietnam appear in both. And the gloomy analysis measures only the effect of pricier staple foods, whereas the other examines freer trade in all farm goods. Such trade brings broader benefits: even if higher prices for staples exacerbate poverty in some countries, at least in the short term, the effect may be outweighed by increased demand for other farm exports, such as processed goods, as rich countries cut tariffs.
These subtleties suggest two conclusions. First, the bank, and others, should beware sweeping generalisations about the impact of food prices on the poor. Second, the nature of trade reform matters. Removing rich-country subsidies on staple goods, the focus of much debate in the Doha round, may be less useful in the fight against poverty than cutting tariffs would be. The food-price crisis has not hurt the case for freer farm trade. But it has shown how important it is to get it right.
Selasa, 03 Juni 2008
The New Face of Hunger
Global food shortages have taken everyone by surprise. What is to be done?
SAMAKE BAKARY sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai rice which, at 400 CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popular variety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky to sell half that. “People ask the price and go away without buying anything,” he complains. In early April they went away and rioted: two days of violence persuaded the government to postpone planned elections.
“World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,” says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting “We're hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. “It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d'Ivoire's chamber of commerce.
Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16% (see chart 1). These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: “Rice is very expensive, but we don't know why.”
The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.
Such shifts have not been matched by comparable changes on the farm. This is partly because they cannot be: farmers always take a while to respond. It is also because governments have softened the impact of price rises on domestic markets, muffling the signals that would otherwise have encouraged farmers to grow more food. Of 58 countries whose reactions are tracked by the World Bank, 48 have imposed price controls, consumer subsidies, export restrictions or lower tariffs.
But the food scare of 2008, severe as it is, is only a symptom of a broader problem. The surge in food prices has ended 30 years in which food was cheap, farming was subsidised in rich countries and international food markets were wildly distorted. Eventually, no doubt, farmers will respond to higher prices by growing more and a new equilibrium will be established. If all goes well, food will be affordable again without the subsidies, dumping and distortions of the earlier period. But at the moment, agriculture has been caught in limbo. The era of cheap food is over. The transition to a new equilibrium is proving costlier, more prolonged and much more painful than anyone had expected.
“We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder.
Because the problem is not yet reflected in national statistics, its scale is hard to judge. The effect on the poor will depend on whether they are net buyers of food or net sellers for some net buyers, the price rises may be enough to turn them into sellers. But by almost any measure, the human suffering is likely to be vast. In El Salvador the poor are eating only half as much food as they were a year ago. Afghans are now spending half their income on food, up from a tenth in 2006.
On a conservative estimate, food-price rises may reduce the spending power of the urban poor and country people who buy their own food by 20% (in some regions, prices are rising by far more). Just over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty; 1.5 billion live on $1 to $2 a day. Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth.
Small is fairly beautiful
In the short run, humanitarian aid, social-protection programmes and trade policies will determine how well the world copes with these problems. But in the medium term the question is different: where does the world get more food from? If the extra supplies come mainly from large farmers in America, Europe and other big producers, then the new equilibrium may end up looking much like the old one, with world food depending on a small number of suppliers and—possibly—trade distortions and food dumping. So far, farmers in rich countries have indeed responded. America's winter wheat plantings are up 4% and the spring-sown area is likely to rise more. The Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the wheat harvest in the European Union will rise 13%.
Ideally, a big part of the supply response would come from the world's 450m smallholders in developing countries, people who farm just a few acres. There are three reasons why this would be desirable. First, it would reduce poverty: three-quarters of those making do on $1 a day live in the countryside and depend on the health of smallholder farming. Next, it might help the environment: those smallholders manage a disproportionate share of the world's water and vegetation cover, so raising their productivity on existing land would be environmentally friendlier than cutting down the rainforest. And it should be efficient: in terms of returns on investment, it would be easier to boost grain yields in Africa from two tonnes per hectare to four than it would be to raise yields in Europe from eight tonnes to ten. The opportunities are greater and the law of diminishing returns has not set in.
Unfortunately, no smallholder bonanza is yet happening. In parts of east Africa, farmers are cutting back on the area planted, mostly because they cannot afford fertilisers (driven by oil, fertiliser prices have soared, too). This reaction is not universal. India is forecasting a record cereal harvest; South African planting is up 8% this year. Still, some anecdotal evidence, plus the general increase in food prices, suggests that smallholders are not responding enough. “In a perfect world,” says a recent IFPRI report, “the response to higher prices is higher output. In the real world, however, this isn't always the case.” Farming in emerging markets is riddled with market failures and does not react to price signals as other businesses do.
This is true to a certain extent of farming in general. If you own a toy factory, or an oilfield, and the price of toys or oil rises, you run the factory night and day, or turn the taps full on. But it always takes a season to grow more food, which is why farm prices everywhere tend to be “sticky”: a 10% increase in prices leads to a 1% increase in output. But the food crisis of 2008 suggests farm prices in developing countries may be stickier than that.
The quickest way to increase your crop is to plant more. But in the short run there is only a limited amount of fallow land easily available. (The substantial unused acreage in Brazil and Russia will take a decade or so to get ready.) For some crops—notably rice in East Asia—the amount of good, productive land is actually falling, buried under the concrete of expanding cities. In other words, food increases now need to come mainly from higher yields.
Yields cannot be switched on and off like a tap. Spreading extra fertiliser or buying new machinery helps. But higher yields also need better irrigation and fancier seeds. The time lag between dreaming up a new seed and growing it commercially in the field is ten to 15 years, says Bob Zeigler of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. Even if a farmer wanted to plant something more productive this year, and could afford to, he could not—unless research work had been going on for years.
It has not. Most agricultural research in developing countries is financed by governments. In the 1980s, governments started to reduce green-revolutionary spending, either out of complacency (believing the problem of food had been licked), or because they preferred to involve the private sector. But many of the private firms brought in to replace state researchers turned out to be rent-seeking monopolists. And in the 1980s and 1990s huge farm surpluses from the rich world were being dumped on markets, depressing prices and returns on investment. Spending on farming as a share of total public spending in developing countries fell by half between 1980 and 2004.
This decline has had a slow, inevitable impact. Creating a new seed is a bit like designing a flu vaccine: you need to keep updating it, or pests and disease will negate its effectiveness. When the rice variety IR8 was introduced in 1966, it produced almost ten tonnes per hectare; now it yields barely seven. In developing countries between the 1960s and 1980s, yields of the main cereal crops increased by 3-6% a year. Now annual growth is down to 1-2%, below the increase in demand (see chart 2). “We're paying the price for 15 years of neglect,” says Mr Zeigler.
Alterations in the structure of farming have exacerbated the effects of underinvestment. Farming is just one part of a food chain that stretches from fertiliser and seed companies at one end to supermarkets at the other. In the past, the end of the chain nearest consumers was less important. Food policy meant improving links between farmers and suppliers. The Green Revolution of the 1960s, for example, provided new seeds and subsidised fertilisers. Malawi is doing something similar now. But over the past decade, the other end of the chain has come to matter more. The main reason why Kenyan and Ethiopian farmers planted less this year was not just that fertilisers were expensive, but that farmers could not get credit to finance purchases. Supermarkets are also more important to farmers than they used to be, accounting for half or more of food sales, even in many developing countries.
Success in patches
In theory, the growing importance of traders and supermarkets ought to make farmers more responsive to changes in prices and consumer tastes. In some places, that is the case. But supermarkets need uniform quality, minimum large quantities and high standards of hygiene, which the average smallholder in a poor country is ill equipped to provide. So traders and supermarkets may benefit commercial farmers more than smallholders.
To make matters worse, smallholdings are fragmenting in many countries. Because of population growth and the loss of farmland, the average farm size in China and Bangladesh has fallen from about 1.5 hectares in the 1970s to barely 0.5 hectares now; in Ethiopia and Malawi, it fell from 1.2 hectares to 0.8 in the 1990s. By and large, the smaller the farm, the greater the burden of the cost of doing business with big retailers. Smaller smallholders are also at a disadvantage in getting loans, new seeds and other innovations on which higher yields depend.
ReutersA burden to afford
Such bottlenecks and market failures make it harder for smallholders to respond to higher prices, even without the multiple distortions that governments also introduce into world food markets. They mean the transition to a new equilibrium will be prolonged and painful. But they do not mean it will not happen. Lennart Båge, the head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a UN agency in Rome, argues that if farmers can keep the higher prices, they will overcome the problems that beset them. As he points out, India feeds 17% of the world's people on less than 5% of the world's water and 3% of its farmland—and, along with China, is seeing its cereal crop rise this year. Similar success stories are cropping up, in patches.
Despite East Africa's problems, Ethiopia this week opened its own commodity exchange, a rare thing on the continent, in an attempt to improve the markets that connect farmers and traders. The spread of mobile phones also relays market information more widely. In landlocked Malawi, it costs almost as much to ship maize to and from world markets as it does to grow it locally, so Malawian farmers have found it hard to export their surplus even with prices high. But partly because of the political disaster of Zimbabwe, regional markets are now springing up out of nowhere in southern Africa—and Malawi's farmers are selling there.
Moreover, technological improvements are still pushing through the neglected soil. Mr Zeigler reckons IRRI has enough tinkerings in the pipeline to increase yields by one or two tonnes a hectare. And if European countries relax their hostility to genetically modified organisms, crop scientists could do things—such as redesigning photosynthesis in plants—which could boost yields 50% or more.
Between November 2007 and February 2008, rice exports from Thailand (the world's biggest exporter) were running at 1m tonnes a month—an unprecedented bonanza. But for even for producers and traders, the blessing was mixed. Some farmers sold their crop before prices soared. Millers tried to keep supplies back, waiting for higher prices. The government capped exports below last year's levels. The secretary-general of the Thai rice exporters' association told IRRI that “We don't know where the 2007 harvest is.” Vichai Sriprasert, a big exporter, describes the Thai rice market using language that, elsewhere, is literally true. “This is a crucial time,” he says. “It will tell the story of who will survive and who will not survive.”
SAMAKE BAKARY sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai rice which, at 400 CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popular variety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky to sell half that. “People ask the price and go away without buying anything,” he complains. In early April they went away and rioted: two days of violence persuaded the government to postpone planned elections.
“World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,” says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting “We're hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. “It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d'Ivoire's chamber of commerce.
Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16% (see chart 1). These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: “Rice is very expensive, but we don't know why.”
The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.
Such shifts have not been matched by comparable changes on the farm. This is partly because they cannot be: farmers always take a while to respond. It is also because governments have softened the impact of price rises on domestic markets, muffling the signals that would otherwise have encouraged farmers to grow more food. Of 58 countries whose reactions are tracked by the World Bank, 48 have imposed price controls, consumer subsidies, export restrictions or lower tariffs.
But the food scare of 2008, severe as it is, is only a symptom of a broader problem. The surge in food prices has ended 30 years in which food was cheap, farming was subsidised in rich countries and international food markets were wildly distorted. Eventually, no doubt, farmers will respond to higher prices by growing more and a new equilibrium will be established. If all goes well, food will be affordable again without the subsidies, dumping and distortions of the earlier period. But at the moment, agriculture has been caught in limbo. The era of cheap food is over. The transition to a new equilibrium is proving costlier, more prolonged and much more painful than anyone had expected.
“We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder.
Because the problem is not yet reflected in national statistics, its scale is hard to judge. The effect on the poor will depend on whether they are net buyers of food or net sellers for some net buyers, the price rises may be enough to turn them into sellers. But by almost any measure, the human suffering is likely to be vast. In El Salvador the poor are eating only half as much food as they were a year ago. Afghans are now spending half their income on food, up from a tenth in 2006.
On a conservative estimate, food-price rises may reduce the spending power of the urban poor and country people who buy their own food by 20% (in some regions, prices are rising by far more). Just over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty; 1.5 billion live on $1 to $2 a day. Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth.
Small is fairly beautiful
In the short run, humanitarian aid, social-protection programmes and trade policies will determine how well the world copes with these problems. But in the medium term the question is different: where does the world get more food from? If the extra supplies come mainly from large farmers in America, Europe and other big producers, then the new equilibrium may end up looking much like the old one, with world food depending on a small number of suppliers and—possibly—trade distortions and food dumping. So far, farmers in rich countries have indeed responded. America's winter wheat plantings are up 4% and the spring-sown area is likely to rise more. The Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the wheat harvest in the European Union will rise 13%.
Ideally, a big part of the supply response would come from the world's 450m smallholders in developing countries, people who farm just a few acres. There are three reasons why this would be desirable. First, it would reduce poverty: three-quarters of those making do on $1 a day live in the countryside and depend on the health of smallholder farming. Next, it might help the environment: those smallholders manage a disproportionate share of the world's water and vegetation cover, so raising their productivity on existing land would be environmentally friendlier than cutting down the rainforest. And it should be efficient: in terms of returns on investment, it would be easier to boost grain yields in Africa from two tonnes per hectare to four than it would be to raise yields in Europe from eight tonnes to ten. The opportunities are greater and the law of diminishing returns has not set in.
Unfortunately, no smallholder bonanza is yet happening. In parts of east Africa, farmers are cutting back on the area planted, mostly because they cannot afford fertilisers (driven by oil, fertiliser prices have soared, too). This reaction is not universal. India is forecasting a record cereal harvest; South African planting is up 8% this year. Still, some anecdotal evidence, plus the general increase in food prices, suggests that smallholders are not responding enough. “In a perfect world,” says a recent IFPRI report, “the response to higher prices is higher output. In the real world, however, this isn't always the case.” Farming in emerging markets is riddled with market failures and does not react to price signals as other businesses do.
This is true to a certain extent of farming in general. If you own a toy factory, or an oilfield, and the price of toys or oil rises, you run the factory night and day, or turn the taps full on. But it always takes a season to grow more food, which is why farm prices everywhere tend to be “sticky”: a 10% increase in prices leads to a 1% increase in output. But the food crisis of 2008 suggests farm prices in developing countries may be stickier than that.
The quickest way to increase your crop is to plant more. But in the short run there is only a limited amount of fallow land easily available. (The substantial unused acreage in Brazil and Russia will take a decade or so to get ready.) For some crops—notably rice in East Asia—the amount of good, productive land is actually falling, buried under the concrete of expanding cities. In other words, food increases now need to come mainly from higher yields.
Yields cannot be switched on and off like a tap. Spreading extra fertiliser or buying new machinery helps. But higher yields also need better irrigation and fancier seeds. The time lag between dreaming up a new seed and growing it commercially in the field is ten to 15 years, says Bob Zeigler of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. Even if a farmer wanted to plant something more productive this year, and could afford to, he could not—unless research work had been going on for years.
It has not. Most agricultural research in developing countries is financed by governments. In the 1980s, governments started to reduce green-revolutionary spending, either out of complacency (believing the problem of food had been licked), or because they preferred to involve the private sector. But many of the private firms brought in to replace state researchers turned out to be rent-seeking monopolists. And in the 1980s and 1990s huge farm surpluses from the rich world were being dumped on markets, depressing prices and returns on investment. Spending on farming as a share of total public spending in developing countries fell by half between 1980 and 2004.
This decline has had a slow, inevitable impact. Creating a new seed is a bit like designing a flu vaccine: you need to keep updating it, or pests and disease will negate its effectiveness. When the rice variety IR8 was introduced in 1966, it produced almost ten tonnes per hectare; now it yields barely seven. In developing countries between the 1960s and 1980s, yields of the main cereal crops increased by 3-6% a year. Now annual growth is down to 1-2%, below the increase in demand (see chart 2). “We're paying the price for 15 years of neglect,” says Mr Zeigler.
Alterations in the structure of farming have exacerbated the effects of underinvestment. Farming is just one part of a food chain that stretches from fertiliser and seed companies at one end to supermarkets at the other. In the past, the end of the chain nearest consumers was less important. Food policy meant improving links between farmers and suppliers. The Green Revolution of the 1960s, for example, provided new seeds and subsidised fertilisers. Malawi is doing something similar now. But over the past decade, the other end of the chain has come to matter more. The main reason why Kenyan and Ethiopian farmers planted less this year was not just that fertilisers were expensive, but that farmers could not get credit to finance purchases. Supermarkets are also more important to farmers than they used to be, accounting for half or more of food sales, even in many developing countries.
Success in patches
In theory, the growing importance of traders and supermarkets ought to make farmers more responsive to changes in prices and consumer tastes. In some places, that is the case. But supermarkets need uniform quality, minimum large quantities and high standards of hygiene, which the average smallholder in a poor country is ill equipped to provide. So traders and supermarkets may benefit commercial farmers more than smallholders.
To make matters worse, smallholdings are fragmenting in many countries. Because of population growth and the loss of farmland, the average farm size in China and Bangladesh has fallen from about 1.5 hectares in the 1970s to barely 0.5 hectares now; in Ethiopia and Malawi, it fell from 1.2 hectares to 0.8 in the 1990s. By and large, the smaller the farm, the greater the burden of the cost of doing business with big retailers. Smaller smallholders are also at a disadvantage in getting loans, new seeds and other innovations on which higher yields depend.
ReutersA burden to afford
Such bottlenecks and market failures make it harder for smallholders to respond to higher prices, even without the multiple distortions that governments also introduce into world food markets. They mean the transition to a new equilibrium will be prolonged and painful. But they do not mean it will not happen. Lennart Båge, the head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a UN agency in Rome, argues that if farmers can keep the higher prices, they will overcome the problems that beset them. As he points out, India feeds 17% of the world's people on less than 5% of the world's water and 3% of its farmland—and, along with China, is seeing its cereal crop rise this year. Similar success stories are cropping up, in patches.
Despite East Africa's problems, Ethiopia this week opened its own commodity exchange, a rare thing on the continent, in an attempt to improve the markets that connect farmers and traders. The spread of mobile phones also relays market information more widely. In landlocked Malawi, it costs almost as much to ship maize to and from world markets as it does to grow it locally, so Malawian farmers have found it hard to export their surplus even with prices high. But partly because of the political disaster of Zimbabwe, regional markets are now springing up out of nowhere in southern Africa—and Malawi's farmers are selling there.
Moreover, technological improvements are still pushing through the neglected soil. Mr Zeigler reckons IRRI has enough tinkerings in the pipeline to increase yields by one or two tonnes a hectare. And if European countries relax their hostility to genetically modified organisms, crop scientists could do things—such as redesigning photosynthesis in plants—which could boost yields 50% or more.
Between November 2007 and February 2008, rice exports from Thailand (the world's biggest exporter) were running at 1m tonnes a month—an unprecedented bonanza. But for even for producers and traders, the blessing was mixed. Some farmers sold their crop before prices soared. Millers tried to keep supplies back, waiting for higher prices. The government capped exports below last year's levels. The secretary-general of the Thai rice exporters' association told IRRI that “We don't know where the 2007 harvest is.” Vichai Sriprasert, a big exporter, describes the Thai rice market using language that, elsewhere, is literally true. “This is a crucial time,” he says. “It will tell the story of who will survive and who will not survive.”
Selasa, 20 Mei 2008
Revolusi Keuangan Mikro
Saat ini keuangan mikro telah menjadi pembicaraan luas. Di tingkat global, PBB menjadikan keuangan mikro sebagai salah satu strategi yang diyakini mampu memberikan konstribusi pada pengurangan jumlah penduduk miskin. Hal ini sejalan dengan upaya PBB untuk mengurangi jumlah penduduk miskin dunia menjadi setengahnya pada tahun 2015 sebagai mana tercantum dalam program Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Melalui keuangan mikro, penduduk miskin dan pengusaha mikro diberi akses untuk melakukan berbagai aktivitas keuangan, baik akses pembiayaan maupun jasa keuangan lainnya, yang memungkinkan mereka dapat melakukan kegiatan produktif dan mengembangkan usahanya.
Buku Marguerite S. Robinson “Revolusi Keuangan Mikro: Pelajaran dari Indonesia”, setidaknya memiliki konstribusi besar pada pengembangan keuangan mikro di tingkat global. Robinson mengungkapkan kepada dunia bahwa telah terjadi pergeseran besar dalam pelayanan keuangan mikro. Pelayanan jasa keuangan mikro yang mampu menyediakan kepastian sumber pembiayaan berkelanjutan kepada usaha mikro adalah keuangan mikro yang komersial. Dengan kata lain, kebijakan protektif dan subsidi bunga kredit kepada UMKM melalui lembaga keuangan mikro perlu dihindari karena hanya menimbulkan moral hazart yang akan menggangu kelangsungan institusional. Robinson ingin menyampaikan bahwa kebijakan distortif dan protektif hanya akan menciptakan inefisiensi dan hanya melahirkan pemburu rente, baik dari pengusaha kecil atau kelompok orang yang mengambil manfaat dari usaha kecil. Dalam kasus Indonesia, BRI Unit justru berhasil pada era dimana lembaga keuangan mikro tersebut harus survive saat penyaluran kredit bersubsidi dihapuskan. Justru pada era komersialisasi kredit mikro itulah BRI Unit menjadi penopang profitabilitas BRI secara keseluruhan.
Argumentasi yang disampaikan atas dasar pengamatan yang dilakukannya secara bertahun-tahun membuktikan bahwa penyaluran dana secara komersial akan mendorong interaksi dan menumbuhkan pola kemitraan untuk saling menjaga. Dari proses tersebut akan terjalin ikatan emosional untuk saling membutuhkan dan dalam jangka panjang akan tercipta suatu simbiosa yang saling menguntungkan. Dengan memahami logika tersebut, paradigma kita dalam memandang sektor mikro ini akan mengalami perubahan secara mendasar, dari sekadar mengurangi kemiskinan dengan subsidi kredit, menuju suatu arah pembiayaan mikro komersial yang berkelanjutan (sustainable commercial microfinance).
Robinson seolah memberikan inspirasi bagi pelaku perbankan untuk melakukan reorientasi bisnisnya kepada ektor mikro dan kecil. Di Indonesia sendiri sejak beberapa tahun terakhir, perbankan nasional telah menetapkan rencana dan strategi yang lebih ekspansif, guna menggali potensi dan kemajuan sektor UMKM. Kedepan, trend pembiayaan pada sektor ini diperkirakan akan terus meningkat. Untuk tahun 2005 ini, sesuai rencana bisnisnya, perbankan memproyeksikan akan menyalurkan kredit baru kepada sektor UMKM sebesar Rp 60,4 triliun. Hal ini menunjukkan keyakinan perbankan bahwa pasar pembiayaan di sektor ini masih belum jenuh. Diperkirakan perbankan masih akan menjadikan sektor UMKM sebagai salah satu segmen pasar yang cukup menjanjikan.
Ekspansifnya penetrasi perbankan ke UMKM akhir-akhir ini berimplikasi pada ketatnya persaingan baik antar-bank maupun gesekan antara bank umum dengan BPR dalam memperebutkan segmen UMKM ini. Iklim persaingan ini diperkirakan akan semakin tajam di masa mendatang. Fenomena ini pada gilirannya akan memberikan implikasi yang harus disikapi dengan arif dan bijak, serta dapat ditempatkan dalam konteks yang lebih luas. Di satu sisi, situasi ini akan memberikan dampak positif ke sektor UMKM dengan semakin terbukanya akses kepada lembaga keuangan. Selain itu, UMKM juga mendapat kesempatan untuk memperoleh variasi skim pembiayaan yang menguntungkan dengan kualitas pelayanan yang semakin baik serta tingkat bunga kredit yan bersaing. Hal yang harus dicatat adalah bahwa sektor ini harus berbenah agar lebih bankable.
Bagi industri perbankan sendiri, adanya iklim persaingan yang sehat akan membawa industri perbankan bergerak ke tingkat efisiensi yang lebih optimal, dimana setiap bank akan berupaya mengenali comparative dan competitive edvantages yang dimilikinya agar dapat terus survive dan berkembang. Dengan demikian setiap bank akan memiliki kekuatan masing-masing sesuai segmen pasar yang dikuasainya, tanpa harus terjadi kekhawatiran akan adanya persaingan yang tidak sehat.
Adanya perhatian yang besar dari industri perbankan kepada sektor UMKM tersebut diharapkan tidak semata-mata hanya karena alasan komersial, namun juga merupakan perwujudan tanggung jawab sosial dari industri perbankan tersebut. Kemampuan dalam memberikan pelayanan, termasuk upaya pembinaan UMKM merupakan aspek kunci keberhasilan operasional suatu bank. Robinson telah memberikan gambaran yang jelas bahwa faktor keberhasilan dari BRI Unit antara lain karena terjadinya ikatan emosional dengan nasabah. Hubungan mutualisme melalui kedekatan antara bank dengan nasabahnya, baik secara komersial maupun emosional merupakan unsur daya saing tersendiri. Kondisi ini akan sangat membantu dalam membuat keputusan bisnis seperti: pengecualian agunan, fleksibelitas jangka waktu kredit dan pembayaran, proses peremajaan alat produksi, dan sebagainya. Peningkatan kapabilitas ini akan dapat meningkatkan ketahanan dan menjamin income sustainability dari pengusaha UMKM sehingga pembiayaan dapat berkesinambungan dan pengembalian kredit akan lebih terjamin. Selain itu, pemberdayaan UMKM dari jalur non-finansial melalui pendampingan dan konsultasi diarahkan untuk meningkatkan kompetensi sumber daya manusia UMKM, sehingga lebih produktif dan pada gilirannya mampu memperbaiki kinerja finansial.
Akhirnya, perlu disadari bahwa setiap tahapan pengembangan, baik lembaga keuangan mikro maupun pemberdayaan UMKM pasti akan menemui berbagai tantangan baru. Maraknya perkembangan keuangan mikro dan semakin luasnya akses UMKM terhadap sektor finansial tidak akan serta merta menyelesaikan masalah kemiskinan dan pengangguran. Namun disadari bahwa tanpa kerja keras dan sinergi kedua sektor tersebut akan sangat sulit bagi bangsa Indonesia untuk menciptakan ekonomi nasional yang berbasis kerakyatan dan memiliki daya tahan yang tinggi terhadap setiap guncangan. Pemberdayaan UMKM diharapkan tidak hanya mampu mengurangi kemiskinan namun juga dapat menciptakan kesempatan kerja dan berkontribusi terhadap pertumbuhan ekonomi sebagaimana dicita-citakan.
*) Tulisan ini disarikan dari sambutan Deputi Gubernur BI, Maulana Ibrahim, pada Seminar dan Bedah Buku “Revolusi Keuangan Mikro: Pelajaran dari Indonesia”, karya Marguerite Robinson
Buku Marguerite S. Robinson “Revolusi Keuangan Mikro: Pelajaran dari Indonesia”, setidaknya memiliki konstribusi besar pada pengembangan keuangan mikro di tingkat global. Robinson mengungkapkan kepada dunia bahwa telah terjadi pergeseran besar dalam pelayanan keuangan mikro. Pelayanan jasa keuangan mikro yang mampu menyediakan kepastian sumber pembiayaan berkelanjutan kepada usaha mikro adalah keuangan mikro yang komersial. Dengan kata lain, kebijakan protektif dan subsidi bunga kredit kepada UMKM melalui lembaga keuangan mikro perlu dihindari karena hanya menimbulkan moral hazart yang akan menggangu kelangsungan institusional. Robinson ingin menyampaikan bahwa kebijakan distortif dan protektif hanya akan menciptakan inefisiensi dan hanya melahirkan pemburu rente, baik dari pengusaha kecil atau kelompok orang yang mengambil manfaat dari usaha kecil. Dalam kasus Indonesia, BRI Unit justru berhasil pada era dimana lembaga keuangan mikro tersebut harus survive saat penyaluran kredit bersubsidi dihapuskan. Justru pada era komersialisasi kredit mikro itulah BRI Unit menjadi penopang profitabilitas BRI secara keseluruhan.
Argumentasi yang disampaikan atas dasar pengamatan yang dilakukannya secara bertahun-tahun membuktikan bahwa penyaluran dana secara komersial akan mendorong interaksi dan menumbuhkan pola kemitraan untuk saling menjaga. Dari proses tersebut akan terjalin ikatan emosional untuk saling membutuhkan dan dalam jangka panjang akan tercipta suatu simbiosa yang saling menguntungkan. Dengan memahami logika tersebut, paradigma kita dalam memandang sektor mikro ini akan mengalami perubahan secara mendasar, dari sekadar mengurangi kemiskinan dengan subsidi kredit, menuju suatu arah pembiayaan mikro komersial yang berkelanjutan (sustainable commercial microfinance).
Robinson seolah memberikan inspirasi bagi pelaku perbankan untuk melakukan reorientasi bisnisnya kepada ektor mikro dan kecil. Di Indonesia sendiri sejak beberapa tahun terakhir, perbankan nasional telah menetapkan rencana dan strategi yang lebih ekspansif, guna menggali potensi dan kemajuan sektor UMKM. Kedepan, trend pembiayaan pada sektor ini diperkirakan akan terus meningkat. Untuk tahun 2005 ini, sesuai rencana bisnisnya, perbankan memproyeksikan akan menyalurkan kredit baru kepada sektor UMKM sebesar Rp 60,4 triliun. Hal ini menunjukkan keyakinan perbankan bahwa pasar pembiayaan di sektor ini masih belum jenuh. Diperkirakan perbankan masih akan menjadikan sektor UMKM sebagai salah satu segmen pasar yang cukup menjanjikan.
Ekspansifnya penetrasi perbankan ke UMKM akhir-akhir ini berimplikasi pada ketatnya persaingan baik antar-bank maupun gesekan antara bank umum dengan BPR dalam memperebutkan segmen UMKM ini. Iklim persaingan ini diperkirakan akan semakin tajam di masa mendatang. Fenomena ini pada gilirannya akan memberikan implikasi yang harus disikapi dengan arif dan bijak, serta dapat ditempatkan dalam konteks yang lebih luas. Di satu sisi, situasi ini akan memberikan dampak positif ke sektor UMKM dengan semakin terbukanya akses kepada lembaga keuangan. Selain itu, UMKM juga mendapat kesempatan untuk memperoleh variasi skim pembiayaan yang menguntungkan dengan kualitas pelayanan yang semakin baik serta tingkat bunga kredit yan bersaing. Hal yang harus dicatat adalah bahwa sektor ini harus berbenah agar lebih bankable.
Bagi industri perbankan sendiri, adanya iklim persaingan yang sehat akan membawa industri perbankan bergerak ke tingkat efisiensi yang lebih optimal, dimana setiap bank akan berupaya mengenali comparative dan competitive edvantages yang dimilikinya agar dapat terus survive dan berkembang. Dengan demikian setiap bank akan memiliki kekuatan masing-masing sesuai segmen pasar yang dikuasainya, tanpa harus terjadi kekhawatiran akan adanya persaingan yang tidak sehat.
Adanya perhatian yang besar dari industri perbankan kepada sektor UMKM tersebut diharapkan tidak semata-mata hanya karena alasan komersial, namun juga merupakan perwujudan tanggung jawab sosial dari industri perbankan tersebut. Kemampuan dalam memberikan pelayanan, termasuk upaya pembinaan UMKM merupakan aspek kunci keberhasilan operasional suatu bank. Robinson telah memberikan gambaran yang jelas bahwa faktor keberhasilan dari BRI Unit antara lain karena terjadinya ikatan emosional dengan nasabah. Hubungan mutualisme melalui kedekatan antara bank dengan nasabahnya, baik secara komersial maupun emosional merupakan unsur daya saing tersendiri. Kondisi ini akan sangat membantu dalam membuat keputusan bisnis seperti: pengecualian agunan, fleksibelitas jangka waktu kredit dan pembayaran, proses peremajaan alat produksi, dan sebagainya. Peningkatan kapabilitas ini akan dapat meningkatkan ketahanan dan menjamin income sustainability dari pengusaha UMKM sehingga pembiayaan dapat berkesinambungan dan pengembalian kredit akan lebih terjamin. Selain itu, pemberdayaan UMKM dari jalur non-finansial melalui pendampingan dan konsultasi diarahkan untuk meningkatkan kompetensi sumber daya manusia UMKM, sehingga lebih produktif dan pada gilirannya mampu memperbaiki kinerja finansial.
Akhirnya, perlu disadari bahwa setiap tahapan pengembangan, baik lembaga keuangan mikro maupun pemberdayaan UMKM pasti akan menemui berbagai tantangan baru. Maraknya perkembangan keuangan mikro dan semakin luasnya akses UMKM terhadap sektor finansial tidak akan serta merta menyelesaikan masalah kemiskinan dan pengangguran. Namun disadari bahwa tanpa kerja keras dan sinergi kedua sektor tersebut akan sangat sulit bagi bangsa Indonesia untuk menciptakan ekonomi nasional yang berbasis kerakyatan dan memiliki daya tahan yang tinggi terhadap setiap guncangan. Pemberdayaan UMKM diharapkan tidak hanya mampu mengurangi kemiskinan namun juga dapat menciptakan kesempatan kerja dan berkontribusi terhadap pertumbuhan ekonomi sebagaimana dicita-citakan.
*) Tulisan ini disarikan dari sambutan Deputi Gubernur BI, Maulana Ibrahim, pada Seminar dan Bedah Buku “Revolusi Keuangan Mikro: Pelajaran dari Indonesia”, karya Marguerite Robinson
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