Padang, West Sumatra - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa has called on Indonesian business and industry players to stop exporting raw materials and begin using them to turn out good with added value.

"It`s time for our businessmen and industrialists to refrain from exporting raw materials and to use them instead to manufacture goods with added value," Hatta said here Saturday.

If Indonesia continued exporting raw materials, the country`s natural resources would sooner or later be exhausted without the nation having benefited from them optimally, he said.

By stopping raw material exports and setting up industries to turn them into finished products, the business and industrial community would also be creating more job opportunities for the people, he said.

Terminating raw material exports would also end the ironical situation in which Indonesia often imported finished goods that were made with raw materials from Indonesia, he said.

By refraining from exporting raw materials, the business community would also be helping the realization of the national "economic corridor" concept, while conversely, the creation of economic corridors was meant to make it easier for industries to obtain raw materials to turn out finished goods, he said.

According to Hatta, the export of raw materials such as rattan so far had only helped industrial development in countries that lacked the particular natural resources but were competing with Indonesia in the international market while continuously stunting the growth of Indonesia`s own industries.

"Yet, Indonesia actually already has the capability to process those raw materials into finished goods," he said, adding the government was now actively promoting industries that use domestic raw materials.