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COMMENTARY ON US-INDONESIA COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS FROM THE AMERICAN INDONESIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

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Friday, January 15, 2010

It’s a Matter of Time


When I first traveled to Indonesia I was introduced to the Indonesian concept of jam karet (rubber time). Appointments times were only a rough estimate and if someone said they were going to visit you tomorrow, it could be in two days or a week. Beginning in the 1980’s, as Indonesia engaged more seriously with the wider global community, jam karet began taking some serious hits. I once showed up for an appointment with a senior government official who was a bit angry at my tardiness, “Not all Indonesians expect to be late, some of us believe in doing a job according to a schedule”. In the 90’s businesses ran in-house training programs on time management, and stories began appearing in newspapers and journals on the topic. Clearly, attempts to change the relaxed attitude towards time were underway.

Now, 10 years after the new millennium, Indonesians, citizens of the world, answer email promptly, and are on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. They get back to their friends immediately.

And so the country can be proud of the singular achievement of its flagship airport, Sukarno-Hatta, which is now ranked 2nd in the world for punctuality, behind two Japanese airports. Using data from FlightStats, the news portal forbesttraveler.com reports (noted by Bruce Gale in the Straits Times) that the airport for Jakarta has a 84.2% on-time arrival rate and 89.2% for departures. Travelers may still complain about customs, airport restaurants, dirty toilets and the traffic bottlenecks between the airport and the city, but in terms of arrivals and departures: no jam karet here !

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President of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, a private not for profit membership organization based in NY.

These views do not necessarily represent those of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce or its members.

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