BANDUNG- itb.ac.id, Friday (16/5) Dr. Rizal Ramli have a End Semester General Lecture themed “Velocity of Deindustrialization vs Industrialization Strategy with Additional Value”. The general lecture was held by ITB STEI in East Auditorium. The event was opened by receptiom from Senior Academic Rector Respresentative, Prof. Dr. Adang Surachman and continued with a short biographical film about the speaker titled “Dr. Rizal Ramli, Sang Penerobos”. The short film is about Rizal Ramli’s political wrestle and Indonesia’s government. Guided by STEI Dean, Prof. Adang Suwandi, Rizal stressed that Indonesians must fight with their own capabilities to save the Indonesian economy. We have to decide the attitude and steps to move forward, including in industry. This country shouldn’t have to depend of foreign assistance. “Foreign Loans is not going to save our economy, it will save foreign banks!” Ramli insisted. Rizal Ramli also addressed the BBM price hike problem. According to Mantan Menko Perekonomian, there are several ways to save on the country’s budget, which is by reducing capital subsidies to banks, devaluations or intentionally lowering the currency value to make export goods cheaper and imported goods more expensive until internal production is protected. “The problem is, until now we perceive a good president to be a president that can protect and strengthen our currency value when a president’s performance should be seen from availability of work field and how many citizens have jobs” he added. Besides those two things, he recommended strengthening the machinery industry. So it won’t just be a natural substance processing with machines purchased overseas but we can make our own machines and support the production process. Also related to how to speed up industrialization, former Bulog Head during the time of Gus Dur sternly stated that the government cannot have the mentality of students staying in hostels- a mentality of debt and selling what there is when bankrupt. The government should have a vision of industrialization and this cannot be left up to the mechanism of the market. “We can definitely take on industry! We just can’t think as engineers, management, payments and least of all team work must be considered as well. ITB has to be the pioneer of change!” Rizal said.