He said the "Fortune 500 and APEC SMEs" forum, a biannual event for bridging dialogue between established industrial giants and SMEs in APEC membership countries, is one of his favorite places to find good partners to Indonesia.

"Chinese people are sometimes over-modest. You call yourselves SMEs, taking it for granted that you are small companies. But God, what you don't realize is that you are already very big companies if you are operating in Indonesia!" he said.

"In our eyes, a company with annual sales of tens of millions of US dollars is anything but small."

Chinese laws categorize manufacturing firms with less than 2,000 employees, annual sales below 300 million yuan ($44.19 million) or total assets less than 400 million yuan ($58.92 million) as SMEs.

Old fears

But the repeated pogroms against Indonesian Chinese by native Indonesians from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s still disturbs many Chinese, making them reluctant to invest in Indonesia.

"Well, this is almost the most difficult part of persuading Chinese investors to put their money in Indonesia," Jauri said, sighing lightly. "Despite my Indonesian nationality, my blood and heart are still Chinese, and I experienced and therefore understand all the sufferings and persecution.

"But things are different now. For one thing, the government is getting more democratic and cleaner; for another, what we are talking about here are energy and resources are in desperate need of Chinese investment."

"As long as all the businesses run in line with the local laws and regulations, there should be no problem, which is exactly the role our SME chamber can play. As an Indonesian Chinese, I hope to bring benefits to both sides - to Indonesia, I hope to bring in development opportunities; to China, I hope to bring it energy and resources for its economic take-off. And the net result will be a win-win, yes?"

Editor: Xu Xinlei

Source: Global Times