CHINAS ARE A DIME A DOZEN:

Indonesia steers toward recovery (Donald Greenlees, 10/26/05, International Herald Tribune)

In the 1970s, Indonesia gained the distinction of being the first country in Asia where Japanese carmakers set up full assembly plants as a launching pad for cheap exports.

The factories still bustle with workers, but the numbers have thinned in recent years amid tougher competition from elsewhere in the region. Nowadays most of these factories serve Indonesia's own appetite for about half a million cars a year.

Yet even though many manufacturers, foreign and domestic, have eschewed Indonesia in recent years, blaming regulatory problems, poor law enforcement and rising wage bills, one is making a bet on the country.

Squeezed between the big names in automaking in a drab strip of metal sheds and low-rise office blocks, 1,000 employees of Indonesian-owned Inkoasku are busy supplying steel and alloy wheel hubs to major manufacturers.

The company is also exporting wheels to carmakers in Asia and Europe and has confirmed its commitment to stay in Indonesia by building a factory in West Java.

"In terms of quality we are better than India and China," said Inkoasku's chief executive, Hadi Kasim, explaining his faith in domestic manufacturing. "China can sell more cheaply, but the quality is not as good."