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Let us learn from Indonesia's experience.
PROGRESSIVE THINKERS learn from the mistakes of others . . . and do
not make the same mistakes themselves.
B. J. Habibie, Minister of Technology and Research of Indonesia
from 1978 to 1998, wanted Indonesia to leapfrog from a Third World
country to a First World, industrialized country. Being an
aerospace engineer, he naturally wanted Indonesia to have its own
domestic aircraft manufacturing program.
With the blessings of his boss (Suharto), Indonesia spent at least
$ 2 billion to develop the N-250. Critics, both domestic and
international, derided the plane as a (flying) white elephant. The
World Bank was not too pleased with this project.
The N-250 was a commercial turboprop that did fly in 1995. The
Indons then tried to market this plane to the world. The problem
was nobody bought the plane!
Why would anyone buy this unknown turboprop from a poor,
third-world country when you can buy a similar plane from the US,
Canada, Brazil, Sweden, etc. with a good track record?
The only overseas interest came from Malaysia where a proposal was
made to swap Malaysian-made Proton cars for Indonesian N-250's.
This deal never made it past the paper stage.
Then the 1997 Asian Financial crisis hit. The Indonesian rupiah,
which was about 2600 to the US$1 and devalued till it reached about
22,000 rupiah to the US dollar.
The Indonesian economy also went on a nose-dive, there were riots
on the streets of Jakarta, foreign investors fled and Suharto, who
had been in power for more than 30 years, had to relinquish his
throne in 1998.
BJ Habibie, who was then the Vice President, succeeded Suharto
briefly for about a year. The N-250, along with Habibie's dreams of
"leap-frogging" Indonesia to industrialization, died after Habibie
left office.