Bekasi, Saco-Indonesia.com - Semakin melemahnya nilai tukar rupiah terhadap dollar AS pun berimbas langsung pada para pengusaha. Usaha mereka terhambat akibat dampak depresiasi tersebut.

Ketua Himpunan Pengusaha Muda Indonesia (HIPMI) Jaya periode 2011-2014 Andhika Anindyaguna mengatakan sebenarnya pengusaha merasakan dampak pelemahan rupiah. Akan tetapi, pengusaha pun terkena imbas-imbas lain, seperti inflasi.

"Inflasi kita kan tinggi. Kemarin pertengahan 2013 pemerintah menaikkan harga BBM. Otomatis harga-harga bahan pokok lainnya ikut meningkat," kata Andhika di Jakarta, Sabtu (11/1/2014).

Andhika menjelaskan inflasi yang menembus angka 8,38 persen itu tentu saja berdampak pada pengusaha. Sebab, harga-harga bahan baku pun ikut melonjak yang membuat pengusaha kewalahan memproduksi.

Selain itu, kenaikan harga elpiji ukuran 12 kilogram, meski direvisi, pun ikut memberi dampak. "Jadi memang kondisi ekonomi kita kurang baik. Harapannya bisa dijadikan PR yang harus diurus, mengingat 2014 merupakan tahun politik. Jangan sampai keadaan ekonomi makin jelek," ujarnya.

Andhika mengaku, yang menjadi kekhawatiran utama sebenarnya adalah terlalu besarnya volume impor yang membuat rupiah melemah.

"Rupiah kita terus melemah karena tingginya permintaan dolar karena impor yang terlalu banyak. Ini yang menjadi kekhawatiran kami," kata dia.

Sumber:Kompas.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.