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From time to time messages arrive in my inbox from the investor relations unit (IRU) at Bank Indonesia. A recent one alerted me to the latest statistics on the country’s debt position.

I monitor macroeconomic developments as part of my daily grind, so this sort of information is useful.

While the IRU Web site service is clunky — it takes three clicks and downloads before you actually get to the page you want — it is safe to say that Indonesia finally has a Web site that provides useful information to the wider world.

The IRU Internet program is part of the central bank’s Web site, which has long been one of the best of Indonesia’s “official” presence on the Web.

It provides a range of information on macroeconomic and banking data that is an essential ingredient for any investment decision on this country. It is a first for well-presented material explaining Indonesia to the world.

It has to be stated that for some time the site was a lonely voice crying in the wilderness: In general, Indonesia has been far too late in appreciating that it needs to do more to sell itself.

Historian Nono Anwar Makarim once told a seminar on Indonesia’s image that the country “is like a middle-aged woman who is wondering why all the men aren’t chasing her anymore.

She still thinks she’s beautiful, but in reality she needs a touch of makeup.” It has taken nearly a decade for the truth of that statement to sink in.

Some confusion remains. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) Web site has good and bad aspects. It is now a reliable source of information on trade, inflation and tourism figures, but more detailed material is often not updated.

An understanding of Indonesian helps, though the English pages are catching up.

Trade Minister Mari Pangestu presumably has never bothered to look at her ministry’s Web site, which is a design disaster and has content of minimal interest that is far too bureaucratic for most people to read.

This is unfortunate since the ministry is supposed to be the gateway to the National Agency for Export Development. The agency used to do good work, but going by its Web site, it appears to have forgotten the original plan for its role in life.

There is good news. Vast improvements have occurred on the Web site of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM). Former private sector banker Gita Wirjawan has emerged as a powerful spokesman for Indonesia’s economy.

In a technological first for a government site, www.bkpm.go.id includes a video of an interview with Gita by Mukul Pandya of Knowledge@Wharton.

In the interview, Gita hits the nail on the head when talking about attracting investment.

“The way to do it is to project Indonesia with positivity, in realism; we don’t want to be swinging the pendulum from one to the other. We have suffered with not many people knowing about Indonesia, and not many people in the right places. That, I think, is the most fundamental [task] we’ve got to work on.”

As Gita goes on to say, he is busy doing that. He is pointing out little-known facts, such as that Indonesia is a $650 billion economy.

He’s right; very few people know much about the country, and this is the first time that Indonesia has started getting its communications right.

Gita also is sticking to his formula of realism. He noted recently that potential investors appreciated that he also told them about the problems, from natural disasters to the difficulty of accessing capital outside Java.

It is unreasonable that people should be asked to put their money in the country, only to find out such problems remain.

There’s always room for fine-tuning, of course. One feature of the BKPM site, “What’s New at BKPM/Sound Bites from our Chairman,” is a little over the top.

The whole site screams Gita, Gita and more Gita. Perhaps the chairman should wake up to the reality that investors might prefer a more balanced diet.

Indonesians have been remarkably resistant to communicating with the outside world. A decade ago, South Korea was light years ahead of Indonesia in terms of projecting itself positively — and realistically — to the world.

While that might have been expected from one of Asia’s first emerging tigers, even Bangladesh did better.

It is only now that Indonesia is making an attempt to make itself better known and more open to people with an interest in its economy and business community.

In the past, it seemed Indonesians simply did not care what the world thought of them and were happy to play in their own country, keeping the rest of the world in the dark about what was going on.

Educated Indonesians remain reluctant to interact with foreigners, while “lower class” people show no shyness around foreigners. It seems a touch of education sends Indonesians running for cover any time a foreign face appears.

This may be the result of a variety of problems, not least the fear of being embarrassed by a lack of English.

There is also a widespread belief that foreigners are totally immoral and that therefore even talking to one could see a person spend a decade or two in the fires of hell.

The result is unfortunate: Indonesians do not generally have much idea about how foreigners act or think. When they go overseas they continue to seek out other Indonesians. Very few have much meaningful interaction with the rest of the world.

This is one reason why not many global citizens have much of an idea about Indonesia: They have never met an Indonesian and therefore have never needed to think about the country.

Fortunately, this situation is changing. People like Gita Wirjawan show that Indonesians are just as capable of being cosmopolitan as anyone else.

Gita even talks like an American, so it is safe to assume he has penetrated the thought processes of the average American. He plays jazz, a skill that almost inevitably involves a deep understanding of American social development through the 20th century.

There are more such individuals out there who have done more with their offshore education than simply collect a degree they can bring back home to brag about.

Many young Indonesians are discovering that there is a world out there, and that world is receptive to Indonesia once it gets the opportunity to hear about it.

In his interview posted on the BKPM Web site, Gita stresses the word “realism.” That’s an important word for any exercise in communications.

If the message you are trying to send does not make sense to the person who hears it, the whole process of communication will fail.

As an occasional teacher of the art of public relations, I point out to students that it is not a sin to admit that a problem exists. Denial of visible reality is self-defeating. That message does not seem to have sunk in with Dino Patti Djalal, on

his way to becoming the ambassador to the United States after serving for six years as presidential spokesman on foreign affairs.

Dino is extremely capable as a spokesman. He does not appear, however, to have accepted the need to acknowledge reality.

At a recent luncheon address to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club, he said that this period represented a “golden era” for Indonesia in which it would become possible to realize all of its dreams.

I tested out that theory with one of the bajaj drivers who park at the end of my street. The response was a single word: kacau (a mess). Finding a middle ground between “golden era” and “kacau” defies me.

The moral of the story seems to be that learning the process of communication is a great step forward for Indonesia. Learning to get the message right — and realistic — may still take some time.


Keith Loveard is a security analyst at Jakarta-based Concord Consulting.