Swiss-Belhotel International, the manager of hotels, resorts and serviced Residences in Asia, is pleased to announce it has signed an agreement with the Ciputra Group to manage their golf club developments in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia.
The property called Ciputra Golf, Family Club and Villas, is located in the western suburbs of Surabaya, just 30 minutes from the Juanda International airport and 15 minutes from the central business district.
Emmanuel Guillard, Vice President Operations and Development of Swiss-Belhotel International - Indonesia said in a press statement: “We are very pleased that Swiss-Belhotel International has been appointed to manage Ciputra Golf, Family Club and Villas and we are confident that the extensive development will enhance the city’s rapidly growing tourism infrastructure. We believe that this will also provide new options for luxury residential living in Surabaya.
The Ciputra Golf, Family Club and Villas have a fantastic view of the golf course.  The club will provide extensive conference facilities as well as excellent food and beverage services. It is ideal for long stay guests, families, company events and meetings.  We will provide the club with Swiss-Belhotel International’s acclaimed high product and service standards, which we have developed through years of endeavour in understanding our guests’ needs completely and satisfying this totally” Guillard further stressed.
Source: http://www.etravelblackboard.com/
January 22nd, 2008
By Bambang Purwanto
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - People in Indonesia today can hardly find fermented soybean cake, locally known as tempe, in the markets as the price of soybean, the main ingredient in the traditional food, has increased to an unprecedented level.
Tempe is a food popular mainly among the common or low-income people who usually have it as a side-dish in rice-based meals.
The soybean price has risen to a level where tempe producers who mostly belong to the small or micro enterprises group can no longer afford to buy it. As a result, tempe has disappeared from the markets.
Many tempe producers have protested the increase in the soybean price because it has disrupted their business to the extent of compelling them to lay off workers or even to go bankrupt.
Besides tempe producers, other businesses offering soybean-based products like soybean milk are also suffering by the soybean scarcity in the market.
Due to the scarcity of soybean in the market, a number of tempe producers in Sidoarjo, East Java, resorted to increasing the price of their product by up to 50 percent.
The chairman of the Candi Tofu-Tempe Cooperative in Sidoarjo, Sukari, said because of the soaring price of imported soybean, tempe producers were forced to raise their tempe price or to reduce the size of their soybean cakes.
As raw material for tempe and tofu, Sukari said, tempe producers in Sidoarjo used soybean imported from Argentina and the United States which is now scarce in the market.
Small-scale companies producing tofu, tempe and soybean milk in Bengkulu are even on the verge of bankruptcy due to the 100-percent hike in the soybean price from Rp3,500/kg to Rp8,000/Kg.
A tempe-tofu producer in Bengkulu, H Sukiman Ali, said the volume of his tempe-tofu production was continuing to drop from day to day due to the soybean price spiral.
“We used to produce 600 kg of tempe-tofu per day but now our production has been reduced to 400 kg daily,” he said.
Thus, if the soybean price continued to rise, most tofu-tempe producers, especially the small-scale ones, in Bengkulu would collapse, Sukiman said, adding that he had even laid off a number of his workers.
Tempe and tofu are also scarce in Jakarta, especially following the recent strike by producers of the fermented foods. Many of them have stopped selling tempe and tofu and switched their business to selling other commodities including vegetables.
Tempe and tofu have disappeared from the Kebayoran Lama market in South Jakarta while the products were previously abundant as they could be found in every corner of the market.
Due to the soaring soybean price, as many as 3,000 tofu-tempe producers in Jakarta recently went on strike for three days and held a rally in front of the presidential palace.
On the occasion, the chairman of the Cooperative Forum for Jakarta Tofu-Tempe Producers, Sukaryo, called on the government to heed the fate of tofu-tempe producers who were suffering by the increasing soybean price.
The same problem is being experienced by people and tempe-tofu producers in other areas in Indonesia, including in the West Java town of Bogor, in Lampung, Manado in North Sulawesi and Medan, North Sumatra.
What needs to be done
Speaking about efforts to overcome the soybean crisis, a member of the Central Java Provincial Legislative Council, Bambang Raharjo, said an imprtant thing to do was to encourage farmers to grow soybean on wider plots of land.
“We are perplexed that Indonesia with its vast land territory fails to meet its need for soybean every year and thus has to import the commodity at a price which has now increased by 100 percent,” Bambang said.
“We need the government to be committed to strengthening the country`s food resilience based on our own potentials, not on imports,” he said.
He said Indonesia was producing only 800,000 tons of soybean per year compared to its need for 1.3 million per year so that it had to cover the gap with imports.
It was reported that following the soybean price increase from US$300 to US$600 per ton, the government was planning to scrap the duty on soybean imports.
The regulation providing for the import duty exemption was expected to be signed on January 21,2008.
The measure was expected to cause the soybean price to drop to Rp5,987/kg at the importer`s level and to Rp6,000/kg at the consumer`s level.
“The government`s measure to lower soybean import duty to zero percent from the present 10 percent is a very pragmatic policy,” a member of the Central Java Provincial Legislative Council, Fatria Rahmadi, said recently.
“In the short term, the measure can indeed reduce the soybean price but it will have a negative effect in the long term. The government seems to be at a loss what to do and so it takes a short cut,” Fatria said.
Of 92,000 industries using soybean as raw material in Indonesia, 39 percent operate in Central Java, 22 percent in East Java, 13 percent in West Java, 8.5 percent in Yogyakarta and the rest in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
Fatria said the measure was taken due to the government`s inadequate attention to farmers and small-scale industries.
The government should actually be able to predict and anticipate the hike in the soybean price through efforts to increase soybean production in the country, Fartia said.
In addition, the government should also protect farmers using the price stabilizing instrument in the post harvest time besides applying a sound and fair trading system, Fatria said.(*)
Source: ANTARA News
January 22nd, 2008