Monday 31 January 2011

Chairman of the Indonesian Franchise Association (AFI): SLUGGISH GROWTH OF FRANCHISE BUSINESS IS DUE TO LACK OF PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT’S SUPPORT

The sluggish development of franchise business in Indonesia, compared to other countries in ASEAN was due to lack of Government support. Anang Sukandar, Chairman of the Indonesian Franchise Association (AFI) disclosed to BusinessNews Friday (18/6). A road show over various cities like Bandung, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, Denpasar, Makassar, Manado, Palembang, Lampung, and Medan showed how poor their understanding was about franchise business.

“Even with the several measures taken by the Government, they are not enough because they are not comprehensive, it ia only partial against the development in Jakarta. Meaning, changes for the better are only happening in locations close to the Ministry in the capital city or provincial capital. Many of them are ingnorant so they are not interested in franchise business” thus was stated by Anang Sukandar during the opening of Internation Franchise Licence Concerence inaugurated by the Director General of Domestic Trading Subagyo.

And yet in Bandung aline an expo such as this was entering the fifth year. In Semarang it had been held twice while some regions were conducting for the eighth time. In fact international expos had been well, and had been staged since 1991.

It was a pity that the association only began activities since 2003. And yet Indonesia wiyh the biggest population should be in number one position in this region. Franchis business in Malaysia stated in 1994, Singapore started in 1994 and the Philipines in 1995.

Under the circumstances there was in fact no problem at all in facing the ASEAN-China FTA. Franchise business in Indonesia has been open for the world since a long time ago. The same was with domestic franchising, no problem had ben encountered so far.

In Food and Beverages business foreign operators were not conflicting against local operators because their target segments were different. Culinary wise it never really mattered whether the franchise were foreign or local, because the business line was different. The foreign operators aimed at the upper class, such as real estates or property, with focus on apartment tenants who were the higher income group.

In reply to the question to what extent had the small business (UKM) benefited from franchise business, it could be stated that such was immeasurable because, it have not arrived at the final conclusion yet. Today there were around 1,200 small business which were included in the premium list of franchise if only ten percent out of it emergent it could be regarded as impressive.

The most prevalent business line in franchise business was food and beverages. There were some Franchise business in education but they were few in number, which made F &B still the most outstanding commodity.

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