This project on Liem Sioe Liong and the Salim Group was undertaken as an independent venture — neither authorized nor financed by the group or the Liem family. The root was our interest to document the life and times of Liem, a pivotal figure in Asian business who founded a conglomerate that in its heyday was by far the largest in Southeast Asia. As Liem was Suharto's main cukong — a Chinese businessman providing funds for Indonesia's military and political leaders while receiving patronage and protection — his story provides an insight to how Suharto was able to stay in power for more than three decades.

There have been a few books published in Indonesian and Chinese about Liem, mostly hagiographies. Significantly, none included the tycoon's direct inputs. Given Liem's desire for a low profile, he had declined previous requests from prospective biographers. Historically, the Salim Group has been highly averse to publicity despite its very public participation in a wide range of businesses during the Suharto regime. Indeed, in many cases, the group chose to ignore inaccuracies in news reports and was content to allow errors in stories to go uncorrected.

Years after Suharto fell from power, we approached Liem's youngest son, Anthony Salim, and said we wanted to write a book on his father and the group. By the mid-2000s, Indonesia had found its footing in the post-Suharto period and Liem had long ago left the driving to Anthony. Currently CEO of the Salim Group, Anthony spent years after Suharto's fall working to avert a collapse of the group due to the massive debts incurred from events in 1997–98.

We requested Anthony and his father to help us tell as accurate and comprehensive a story as we could. We made it clear that we had to retain full control of the manuscript; it was clearly understood that the family and Salim executives could not see any of the text prior to publication. Keeping the writing project independent and credible was of paramount importance to us. Anthony agreed to our requests. His father talked to us between 2006 and 2007, whenever his health permitted. Anthony, who did not vet our questions to himself or to his father, spent many hours with us over a period of years.

Seven months after Liem's home was torched, a company was created for the sole purpose of disposing Salim assets in order to repay the outstanding debts. Holdiko Perkasa was formed in December 1998 by IBRA. An information memorandum said Holdiko was established “in relation to the settlement between the Salim Group and the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency with regard to liquidity credits provided to BCA and the affiliated loans which exceeded the Legal Lending Limit given by BCA to Salim Group affiliated companies.” Office space for Holdiko was created in Wisma Indocement, seven floors below Anthony Salim's nineteenth storey office. Cynics viewed it as literally “being under” Anthony. But by then, Salim had lost some of its vaunted clout, and Holdiko worked hard to be credible, keeping more than an arm's length away. Its efforts won kudos as well as criticism. Holdiko worked a lot better than four similar bodies set up by IBRA to sell assets pledged by other debtors.

GETTING STARTED AMID TURBULENCE

Technically, Holdiko was owned by two Salim companies, Gemahripah Pertiwi and Carakasubur Nirmala. But all their shares were pledged to IBRA along with all of Holdiko's in the Salim-pledged assets, and the information memo noted it was “under the effective control of IBRA”, which appointed Holdiko's management and directed its work. IBRA said it would have “hands-off management but hands-on oversight”. Salaries and Holdiko expenses were paid out of sales of Salim assets, not by IBRA. Salim was meant to have nothing to do with Holdiko's operations, but not surprisingly, there were serious doubts that Anthony could be kept at bay. By design, there were two Salim people among Holdiko's directors, but the pivotal person was an American investment banker, Scott Coffey, who had a reputation for solid integrity and no Salim links. Coffey came to Jakarta in 1990 with Citibank and later worked at state-owned Bahana Securities. IBRA chairman Glenn Yusuf hired Coffey, who had a power-of-attorney to act for IBRA. Holdiko's small professional staff — fewer than twenty — included largely young bankers, as they were perceived to be less likely to be steeped in Indonesia's corruption-tainted ways. Holdiko took possession of pledged Salim assets and prepared procedures for selling them.

Liem was not afraid of taking risks and venturing into territory he didn't know much about. His modus operandi was to find the right partner who could run the new venture for him. Liem's talent laid in sussing out capable and experienced people who could help grow his stable of businesses. Mochtar Riady led the charge in banking for nearly fifteen years. Robert Kuok was “instrumental” in building up flour milling, while in cement Liem got start-up help from a Taiwanese partner introduced by Bangkok Bank's Chin Sophonpanich. Another area where Liem forged a beautiful friendship was in property, where he teamed with savvy developer Ciputra, who spearheaded property developments through a company partly owned by the Jakarta government, PT Pembangunan Jaya, and through Ciputra's PT Metropolitan Development.

PARTNERING A PROPERTY KING

Born Tjie Tjin Hwa, Ciputra rose from very simple roots to become Indonesia's best-known property developer. He seemed to possess the “tangan dingin” — the kind of “magic” business touch that Riady and Liem had. Ciputra, who started using that name at age twenty-five, was born in 1931 in the small town of Parigi in central Sulawesi (then known as Celebes). His father was from a different part of Fujian than Liem's village. He was brought to Sulawesi at age ten by Ciputra's grandfather who had migrated earlier and was a shopkeeper in the northern Sulawesi town of Gorontalo. Ciputra's father, a coconut trader, had married a woman who was part-Chinese, part-pribumi; their son did not have any Chinese education. As a child, Ciputra recalls he had to walk seven kilometres each way between his primary school and home. One day, when Ciputra was twelve, during the Japanese Occupation, his father disappeared. The family found out much later that he died in a prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, Ciputra went to high school, where he did well enough to win a place at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in West Java. The institute, where Sukarno studied, admitted very few Chinese students at the time. While studying architecture in Bandung, Ciputra showed strong entrepreneurial instincts; he sold baskets and hats made from palm trees, traded batik, and designed and sold furniture.

One hankered after power, the other after money, and when they paired up they made a potent team that kept them on top in Indonesian politics and business respectively for three decades. President Suharto and Liem Sioe Liong worked very closely together, building a symbiotic relationship that resulted in huge benefits for both. Liem, founder of the colossal business conglomerate known as the Salim Group, proved himself to be a reliable businessman and became Suharto's main cukong — a Chinese financial backer who is given protection by powerful political or military leaders. In his rise from an itinerant peddler to Indonesia's wealthiest businessman, Liem received patronage from several generals, but most importantly from Suharto himself. The strongman acquired unchecked and, for a long time, uncheckable power and until his shocking resignation in May 1998, was one of the world's longest-serving heads of government. In 1983, sycophantic parliamentarians conferred on him the title Bapak Pembangunan — “Father of Development”, which Suharto cherished, as he liked to claim that all his endeavours were for the good of the “common man”. But while he claimed to identify with the “wong cilik” (Javanese for “little people”), Suharto saw himself as possessing the wahyu, sort of a divine right, to be the country's ruler. An Indonesian historian once commented: “Like a Javanese monarch, Suharto always equated his selfcontrol and harmony in relation to the spiritual world with the well-being of the nation and the state.”

He surrounded himself with people who could serve faithfully and unquestioningly. To stay at the apex of power, Suharto relied on several pillars. One was the military — which the general used effectively. He used money to keep the armed forces loyal to him and used them to suppress political opponents — both real and perceived ones. The military had stepped in to run companies of the colonial Dutch that Sukarno, the first president, nationalized in 1957, and top generals became used to having opportunities to enrich themselves. They became an even bigger player in Suharto's New Order. Another crucial prop for Suharto was financial and other aid from the West. Indonesia was in dire straits when he came into power, and the way he and his team of Western-trained technocrats opened the country for foreign investment was vital for economic growth.

In the years after the downfall of his patron, Liem spent most of his time in Singapore, leading a mostly sequestered life far removed from his days as one of the most recognized faces in the Indonesian corporate world. Unlike in Jakarta where he was constantly hounded, he was able to move around in the island republic scarcely disturbed. Unaccustomed to being at home much of the time, he kept up the habit of going to the office, only this time it was to the office of Permanent Pte Ltd usually every afternoon, except Sundays, when he would go to the KMP office at the Fook Hai Building in Chinatown, which was Anthony's base. No real business had been conducted at Permanent for years, but Liem felt that in keeping with its name, the office should remain open. Sometimes, visitors from China dropped by to see him. It was Anthony's habit to be in Singapore on weekends when he was not travelling elsewhere on business. He would brief his father about the latest business developments. Liem continued to make occasional trips to China as long as his health permitted. He particularly enjoyed going to his hometown, Fuqing, which welcomed him with open arms. Before his health declined to the point he could no longer travel, Liem also made the occasional short trips to Jakarta, and whenever possible he would stop by at Jalan Cendana to visit his old friend Suharto.

A “HOMECOMING” IN CHINA

Liem regarded Indonesia as his home, but there always was a special place in his heart for his native town in China. When he was able to return to his village of Niuzhai, he would pay respects to his ancestors at their simple graveyard. He was much loved as a philanthropist in Fuqing, credited with leading the charge in transforming the provincial backwater into a modern city. Here, he was simply called “laoban” — the Boss — and the one who was instrumental in providing seed money that enabled Fuqing to have roads, bridges, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, industrial areas and even a port. In his ancestral home, Liem was accorded demigod status. It was evident during one visit he made during Chinese New Year in February 2006.

FAREWELL TO A TYCOON

Liem died on 10 June 2012 at Raffles Hospital in Singapore, just short of his ninety-fifth birthday. By the Chinese lunar calendar, it was the twenty-first day of the fourth leap month; a date that some considered coincidental as the figure 21 had always been special for the tycoon. Liem was buried at the Choa Chu Kang Cemetery in Singapore on 18 June, a date chosen by Buddhist monks. Despite the fact that he regarded Indonesia, where he lived for sixty years, as home, it was decided that the island state was the most appropriate place to hold his funeral and burial at this time. The long-term plan was to have his remains eventually moved to Java where he and his wife, who in June 2012 was too frail to travel, would eventually be buried. (A burial plot in land-scarce Singapore is only guaranteed for fifteen years, with the government exhuming multiple cemeteries to make way for development.)

Liem's death sparked a send-off rarely seen in Singapore for a nonpolitical figure. A parade of people from all over the region attended his week-long wake. The demand for wreaths was so great there was a shortage of fresh flowers in the country for a few days. Friends and business associates flooded Indonesian and Singapore newspapers with condolence announcements. First Pacific issued a statement on the death of its long-time chairman, noting that while retired from active involvement, Liem “stood at the peak of a long and distinguished career… His career culminated in the unofficial title, Indonesia's first industrialist.”

At the wake, air-conditioned tents were set up, and the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel, controlled by Mochtar Riady's Lippo Group, provided five-star catering for guests. Mourners covered the myriad of people whose lives had been touched by the cukong, including politicians, industrialists, businessmen, fellow clansmen and schoolchildren — beneficiaries of his philanthropy. Visitors from Indonesia included former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose family ties with Liem began with her grandfather Hasan Din, as well as Suharto's two youngest daughters, Titiek and Mamiek — the two among the six Suharto progeny that Liem once told the authors he felt the most affinity with.

On the night of 4 September 1990, Jakarta bankers were stunned by a press release from the central bank unlike any they had seen. In a terse statement, Bank Indonesia announced that the board of supervisors — including the chairman — and the board of directors at PT Bank Duta had been fired by its majority shareholders following “operational mistakes” and foreign exchange losses. Bank Duta, widely considered to be Suharto's bank as its dominant shareholders were three foundations chaired by the president, was Indonesia's fifth largest privately owned bank. The dismissed bank chairman was Bustanil Arifin, Suharto's close ally and a good friend of Liem. Bustanil, a retired general, was Minister of Cooperatives as well as head of Bulog. And the losses incurred at the bank involved a senior bank executive, who happened to be Bustanil's son-in-law.

BANK DUTA: THE “FAVOUR-EXCHANGE” BANK

Bank Duta's “operational mistakes” turned out to be serious gambles on currency movements that caused the bank to lose more than twice its total capital. The Duta scandal encapsulated many elements of the murky and sometimes wild Indonesian business environment. Duta was a publicly listed company, yet there was a complete absence of transparency about its financial position as well as a woeful lack of prudent banking regulation. In the handling of the scandal, what showed to be functioning well was Indonesia's version of the “Favor Bank”, taking a term from American writer Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. One character in the book, a lawyer, declares that “everything in the criminal justice system in New York operates on favors. Everybody does favors for everybody else. Every chance they get, they make deposits in the Favor Bank… It's saving up for a rainy day.” People who make regular deposits in the Favor Bank, he explains, put themselves in position to ask politicians for big favors.

Suharto's Indonesia operated as a kind of Favor Bank. Liem, who had given 30 per cent of BCA's shares to Suharto's eldest son and daughter, was arguably the biggest “depositor” in Jakarta's version. In June 1985, when Liem was squeezed by cement overcapacity and debt, the president returned the favour. At times, Suharto needed to call in favours, and Liem responded, as did others in the case of Bank Duta. The Salim Group reaped good dividends for providing needed deposits.

At the time Suharto was solidifying the power wrested from Sukarno in 1966, Liem had little business outside Indonesia and was relatively unknown outside his Hokchia circle. Early in the New Order, though, Liem and his partner, fellow Hokchia businessman Djuhar Sutanto, established a beachhead for outside activity. On 31 March 1967 — less than three weeks after Suharto's handpicked assembly declared him acting president — Waringin Private Limited was registered in Singapore. Its principal activities, according to the registration, were “general wholesale trade” and “wholesale on a fee or contract basis (e.g. commission agencies)”. The company registration papers listed Liem Oen Kian (Djuhar's Chinese name), as managing director, and Liem Sioe Liong as director. (Much later, Djuhar's role ended. In 2006, Liem owned 120 of the unlisted company's 300 shares, or 40 per cent, while unidentified nominees in Vanuatu held the other 180.)

SINGAPORE BEACHHEAD

During the early Suharto years, the ability of Indonesian companies to export or import depended entirely on government licences. Dismantling stifling trade-controls was not an economic priority for Suharto, who had his focus on taming rampant inflation and getting money from the West. For sizeable Indonesian traders, it was good to have a presence in Singapore, whose port handled nearly all goods going to or from Indonesia. At this time, it was difficult for Indonesian traders to obtain letters of credit, a consequence of the economic mess the country was in at the end of Sukarno's tenure, and a Singapore firm would find it easier and cheaper to borrow from banks than an Indonesian one. In July 1968, Liem opened a second trading company in Singapore, Permanent Pte Ltd. That same month, he and others registered a textile business in Singapore, called International Spinning Mills Pte Ltd., to spin, weave and print yarns and fabrics. A co-shareholder was Indonesia-born businessman Henry Kwee, another Hokchia who later became a property king in Singapore. In the late 1960s, Singapore had a thriving textile industry but by the 1980s, the business had shifted to lower cost countries. Liem sold the Singapore factory plot and moved the machinery to Indonesia.

The end of the Japanese Occupation in 1945 was universally celebrated but brought fresh challenges. As the Japanese were surrendering, nationalist leader Sukarno proclaimed independence on 17 August, raising a red and white flag hastily stitched by his young wife Fatmawati. The declaration of independence, however, was not recognized by the Dutch, who were keen to reassert control over their colony and all its resources. The tussle between the colonial forces and the independence fighters went on until 1949. During this time, the Dutch tried to choke off supply lines to the revolutionary soldiers, imposing sea and land blockades. Suppliers had to sneak through Dutch controlled areas, turning them effectively into smugglers. For those willing to take the risks, smuggling was a lucrative activity.

For small itinerant traders like Liem, it was a chance to start recouping his lost income. His hard-earned savings in Japanese Occupation-issued notes — stashed in sacks — were wiped out overnight when it was declared worthless. As he recalled: “The new government compensated every household by the number of occupants living there: regardless of how much money you had, each person was entitled to only one rupiah. There were eight of us living in our house, and we received a total of eight rupiah. That was all. The Occupation ended but I had to start all over again.” Adding to his responsibilities as a family man was the arrival of his first-born, Albert, that year. Although he was back to square one, Liem was luckier than most; he was once again able to capitalize on the strong Hokchia kinship, borrowing capital from his clansmen to restart his business. There was even a new customer base — the independence fighters. He joined others in smuggling basic necessities to them, laying the groundwork for a role that would reach far beyond being just a supplier. It was during this time that he established important contacts that later helped put him on the road to riches.

STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

After the Japanese surrender, the Dutch, aided by British and other allied forces, waged a bitter war with the nationalists in their attempt to recover their colony.

1996 — the year before the financial crisis hit the region — could be called Salim's high-water mark. Everything was progressing smoothly — business was booming and the sky looked to be the limit. In July 1996, Asiaweek magazine in Hong Kong put out its first annual list of people it labelled Asia's “Power 50”, and Suharto and Liem proved their potency — the president topped the list, while his leading cukong was Number 5 (and the highest ranking businessperson). That year, Salim published its first comprehensive corporate brochure, a forty-page full-colour production with a plain white cover featuring the group's logo — an embossed globe with the name Salim written across it. Chairman Liem's written message declared confidently that the group's “best years still lie ahead”. What lay ahead instead was a traumatic plunge from power for Liem and his patron. In retrospect, the bucolic days of 1996 for Salim were somewhat akin to the maiden voyage of the Titanic before it struck the iceberg: there was celebration and partying on board, and passengers envisioned grand dreams for the future. It was the prophetic calm before the storm. For Suharto, 1996 portended the calamity that would follow. Having ditched his close military advisors and at the apogee of power, Suharto continued dispensing favours for his children's ventures, and indeed, extended it to the next generation as well. That year proved to be a turning point for the president when his wife — his pillar of support, and some say, the possessor of his wahyu — died.

HONOURED IN PHILADELPHIA

For Salim, though, 1996 was smooth sailing. There was a high point for Salim's offshore vehicle, First Pacific. In July, the company was named a “component stock” of Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index. Being part of the index boosted interest in First Pacific, whose shares were more than ten times higher than in 1991. The magazine BusinessWeek declared: “First Pacific's mix of East and West may be a model for the future.” It was a nice birthday present for FP chief Manny Pangilinan, who had just turned fifty and celebrated it with a big bash at the posh Shangri-la Hotel in Manila — he was now the head of a certified blue-chip company.

As Holdiko was selling pledged assets, Anthony was consolidating control over what was left of the Salim empire. Not one to sit around licking his wounds, he was already looking beyond the remnants of the group and exploring new growth possibilities. Through the first ten years after Suharto's fall, the Salim story featured twists and turns, low points and highs, as the group lurched ahead. One striking low point — rooted in First Pacific's expansion in the Philippines — was a bruising, public spat between Anthony and his long-time partner at First Pacific, Manny Pangilinan. Fortuitously for both men and for First Pacific, the relationship was repaired and the partnership flourished again. An important albeit low key high point was Anthony getting a document from Indonesian authorities called a “release and discharge” statement saying he had discharged his obligations from debts owed to the state in the wake of Suharto's fall. After receiving this legal all-clear, Anthony decided to become CEO of Indofood, so he was directly running a big listed company for the first time. Anthony's business interests expanded at home and elsewhere. Moves to grow on new turf did not always succeed, most clearly in an effort to get a beachhead in India, which went badly. But on the whole, the Salim Group — or what now should be considered the Anthony Salim Group — was again on the move.

STRESS TEST AT FIRST PACIFIC

The severe backlash against Salim that began as soon as Suharto was forced to step down made the group relieved it had created First Pacific. However badly things went for Salim inside Indonesia, the Hong Kongbased company gave Anthony a tool away from home. First Pacific had cash, thanks to completion of the big sale of Hagemeyer two months before the May 1998 Jakarta riots. Some First Pacific shareholders fretted about the possibility of the Hong Kong-listed company being prevailed upon to come to the rescue of the sinking Salim ship in Indonesia. In mid-1998, they saw its biggest owner imperilled and Asia in crisis while First Pacific's most profitable investment, Hagemeyer, was gone. The May 1998 events pummelled First Pacific's share price.

After Suharto gained power, the United States provided aid to help him consolidate it. But Washington could not provide one thing the general wanted — big supplies of rice. The United States pressed Suharto to accept surplus wheat under the “Food for Peace” programme. But in the 1960s, Indonesians weren't keen on wheat, which they did not grow. Fifty years later, rice remained the essential staple, but the diet of many Indonesians included wheat products in the form of instant noodles, available in a dazzling assortment of flavours — and a Salim company, Indofood, was market king. Per capita consumption of wheat shot up from a miniscule 0.3 kilograms in 1966 to around 9 kilograms at the start of the 1980s and doubled to 18 kilograms in 2010.

As noted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in April 2011: “The price of instant noodles is currently cheaper than rice and many more middle to lower income consumers substitute instant noodles for breakfast or dinner.”2 Over the decades, “Indomie” noodles became the Salim product best known to the public, and noodles became Salim's “money machine”, as described by SWA, a Jakarta business magazine, in 1994 — by which time Indofood was the world's largest maker of instant noodles, surpassing Nissin Food Products of Japan, whose founder Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle in 1958.

MUSCLING INTO NOODLES

The story of how Salim became a noodle giant reflects the group's potency, not pioneering. For years after Bogasari began grinding wheat, Salim did not try to make anything with the flour it produced. Also of interest is that another man, not Liem, started Indomie, a contraction for “Indonesian mie” (mie is Indonesian for noodles). This case was similar to that of Indomobil, where a product with the “Indo” prefix was originally owned by another party. According to Anthony, Salim got into the noodles business by “accident”, not design. Behind the famous Indomie name was an enterprising businessman from Medan, North Sumatra, by the name of Djajadi Djaja, who also started a distribution company, Wicaksana. He reluctantly entered a partnership with Salim and, over time, was bought out. After Suharto fell many years later, Djajadi sued Indofood and members of the Gang of Four, contending he had been forced to exit the joint venture and sell the now-famous Indomie name for a pittance.

During his thirty-two-year regime, Suharto seldom spoke publicly about Liem. This is not surprising, as the strongman presumably felt no need to defend his relationship with his main cukong, who was supposed to be there to give financial support but not talked about. Also, the Indonesian media never had the chance to directly ask about Liem, as Suharto hardly ever gave press conferences. The few interviews he granted always required the media to submit questions in advance, and if the keepers of Suharto's door didn't like a question, the media requesting the interview was informed that the president's busy schedule made one impossible. Still, there was no way to shut people up completely, and the Suharto-Liem link continued to be a matter of public discourse, with some bolder media commenting on it. Suharto broke his silence one day in 1995, when he surprisingly responded to persisting public discussions about the greatly slowed pace of economic reform by launching an unexpected, robust defence of his ties with Liem.

“CARRYING OUT AN ASSIGNMENT”

One of the major topics in Suharto's unscripted remarks was cement. This was surprising, too, as the subject getting heavy attention at that time was Bulog's continuing monopolies, in particular over wheat imports, and Bogasari's domination of flour-milling; in the preceding months, Salim's position in flour had come under renewed public criticism. Little if any attention was paid then to cement, where there was no monopoly. A decade earlier, though, Suharto had bailed out Liem when his cement business was overextended, and now that he had decided to speak on his pal's behalf, cement was the key subject, along with flour. Suharto told 200 small- and medium-sized pribumi executives at his Tapos ranch that where critics saw the cukong as a big crony in collusion with the President, he saw a capable businessman who dutifully carried out whatever “national service” he was instructed to do. People had the wrong notions about how Salim became big in cement, Suharto declared to the assembled audience, jabbing the air with a finger to emphasize his point. “Everything has been mistaken, as if there was collusion between me and Liem. No.

Clove, the aromatic spice used to flavour the popular Indonesian kretek cigarette, may resemble a nail, but over this humble flower bud, wars have been fought, and fortunes made or lost. For Liem, it was trade in this spice that helped him lay the groundwork for the path to riches. Called cengkeh in Indonesian, cloves were found originally in the five remote islands in Eastern Indonesia known as the Spice Islands. In the late eighteenth century, some seedlings were smuggled to Africa, where they flourished in the soils of Madagascar and Zanzibar (today part of Tanzania). Ironically, cloves that were grown there yielded buds of a preferred quality for use in the production of kretek, the clove-infused cigarette beloved by Indonesian smokers. But importation for the spice was tightly controlled by the government, and suppliers had to be purchased from middlemen in Singapore and Hong Kong, making them immensely wealthy. When Indonesia was not producing sufficient quantities for domestic demand, politically connected companies were granted permission to import from the African countries, starting in the Sukarno era. In 1965, using a company founded by his partner, Hasan Din, a father-in-law of President Sukarno, Liem secured a one-time permission to bring in 3,000 tons from Africa. That single import helped ease his debt burden, and he became convinced there was big money to be made in this business.

Traditionally, kretek have been hand-rolled; the fragrance of the clove said to be further enhanced when rolled by young women using the sides of their hips. Kretek consumption surged in the 1970s following the introduction of machines to roll the sticks, bringing down price per stick. Around 90 per cent of the cigarettes consumed in Indonesia are kretek. From being an industry that was in doldrums in the 1950s, kretek manufacturing began its resurgence and in the last decade or more, the owners of the largest kretek manufacturers consistently rank among the wealthiest in the country. The cigarette industry is the largest contributor to the country's excise coffers. So addicted are Indonesian smokers to their kretek that at the height of the 1997–98 financial crisis, sales of the scented cigarette actually rose — an indication that people were willing to forgo other luxuries but not their puff, or that they felt they needed it more, to soothe their woes.