RI TO HOLD INT`L SEMINAR ON `ONE VILLAGE. ONE PRODUCT` CONCEPT

Jakarta, July 20 (ANTARA) - Indonesia will hold an international seminar on "One Village, One Product" (OVOP) in Bali on December 14-15 with participants from countries developing the concept.

"We wish to take the momentum of regional autonomy implementation for economic empowering through the OVOP concept," the director general of small and medium-sized industries of the ministry of industry, Fauzi Aziz, said here on Monday.

He said the concept developed by former governor of Oita in Japan, Morihiko Hiramatsu, had already been put into practice in a number of countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and a number of other Asian countries including Indonesia.

"We think the OVOP development is the best solution for empowering and developing the people in the regions based on the capacity of the regions concerned," he said.

Based on the concept one region will only develop the most competitive product based on its competence by involving community members.

Fauzi visited Oita last week to study the development of OVOP and its implementation which needs strong leadership that could motivate people to produce a product with competitive edges.

He said the government did not give any incentive for it expect infrastructure development and establishment of an institution to help seek solutions of small and medium-sized industries' problems linked to production process, packaging and marketing.

"Actually we have already had several candidates that have developed OVOP well such as essential oil production in Sumedang and others, which we have proposed to be given an award at the international seminar later," he said.

He said Morihiko Hiramatsu was scheduled to give awards to four countries that had successfully developed OVOP at the seminar later.

Fauzi said the seminar was expected to be attended by 200 participants from various countries such as countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) including Indonesia, Japan, China, Malawi and others.

The seminar will also present five speakers from countries that had successfully developed OVOP, he said. ***