Merger Of BUMN Aviation And Tourism, Positive Or Negative Impact?

Illustration. (Didi Kurniawan / VOI)

JAKARTA - Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Eko Listiyanto positively assesses the discourse of the Ministry of BUMN, led by Erick Thohir, to combine state-owned aviation and tourism.

According to Eko, as long as this BUMN holding will be able to collaborate and synergize with private business actors engaged in the tourism sector, this should be welcomed.

"If the concept is indeed leaner management, I think it will be positive in the future. The discourse on the merger of state-owned aviation and tourism by the government is hoped that BUMNs engaged in the tourism and aviation sectors will be more integrated," said Eko as quoted by Antara, Tuesday, August 11.

According to him, through the merger, aviation and tourism BUMNs have the opportunity to grow better because they are integrated. The merger also creates opportunities to revive the tourism sector both during the pandemic and after the COVID-19 outbreak ends.

"I think that through this discourse on the merger of state-owned aviation and tourism, the tourism sector, which was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, can revive itself. Especially if Indonesia has managed to overcome this deadly pandemic, the opportunity for the tourism sector to spike again is enormous," he said.

However, he reminded that it must be seen whether later when BUMN aviation and tourism are combined, whether it will have consequences for the private sector, which is mainly engaged in the tourism sector, in order to maintain healthy business competition.

"I see the possibility that there will be challenges in terms of the business competition climate and the government also needs to map the domains of the aviation and tourism sector that are controlled by private business actors so that they can collaborate with the combined aviation and tourism BUMN holding," said Eko.

Eko said Indonesia applies economic democracy in which the private sector is also empowered, especially private business actors in the tourism sector such as hotels and restaurants.

Thus, caution must be exercised in realizing the discourse of merging aviation and tourism SOEs because in addition to making the incorporated SOEs more sustainable and growing bigger, this discourse must also be able to maintain proportions so as not to create the impression of dominating business competition, especially in the tourism sector.

"If the discourse on the merger of state-owned tourism aviation companies will not interfere with the institutions and business competition climate, I think there is no problem," he said.

Eko also said that the government and state-owned aviation and tourism enterprises also need to have more dialogues and collaborate with private business actors engaged in the tourism sector in order to mutually benefit and maintain a competitive climate.

The government is planning to merge state-owned aviation and tourism companies in order to carry out transformation and consolidation in the tourism sector and also in the aviation sector through better structuring. The momentum of this arrangement occurred especially during the COVID-19 pandemic due to a deep contraction in the two sectors in the second quarter of 2020.