To alleviate a spare-parts shortage that is slowly crippling transportation, the company of the president's second son Bambang Trihatmodjo recently got permission to import parts at a state-subsidized exchange rate of 5, 000 rupiah to the greenback.
That is partly the healthy consequence of liberal economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s: the previous policies of state-led import-substitution tended to concentrate economic activity close to the centres of political power.
India was allowing the local Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and some other state refineries to import Iranian crude oil on cost, insurance and freight basis wherein Tehran was to arrange for ships and insurance, and would receive no profit from the sale.