Smartcitymakassar.com. --Makassar- ASEAN Community or widely known as ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC), will be put into effect at the end of this 2015 year. The history of this AEC agreement comes from
the result of ASEAN presidential level meeting at the ASEAN Summit around a
decade ago. This agreement is the most
spotlighted and most debating issue since it will in a straight line
change the current ASEAN trade picture.
In a main picture, the true AEC is an
era where a single ASEAN market will be enacted. All ASEAN leaders agree on this AEC in order
to improve the ASEAN competitiveness and to keep pace with China and India in
term of foreign investments attractiveness.
Such foreign investment is substantially needed by this region to create
more new employments. The more
employments emerge, then the more prosperous community this region can
achieve.
As a result, AEC is
an important stage to achieve the region economic stability, and as a way to
cope with economic problems among ASEAN countries. ASEAN is the third biggest economic power in
the world following Japan and China. ASEAN
consists of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philiphine, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam,
Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
The AEC
initiation comes from the ASEAN leaders agreement at the ASEAN Summit held in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 1997.
The leaders have agreed to improve their region’s competitiveness. To attract foreign investments at the same
level with China and India is another aim of this agreement. At the following Summit held in Bali,
Indonesia, in October 2003, the ASEAN leaders declared to apply the AEC in
2015.
Some impacts will
emerge as the AEC implementation in term of free flows of goods, services,
investments, and skilled-labors, and capital among ASEAN countries. For Indonesia, apart from these impacts, some
potential obstacles should be seriously taken into considerations.
Educational level
is the first obstacle. The educational
level of our labor force is still low.
Up to February 2014, around 76,4 millions of our labors (or around 64%
of the total Indonesia labor force) is at SMP (or junior high school level) or
lower graduated. Secondly, the
availability and quality of our infrastructure is also low. As a consequence, it will have effects on
goods and services regular flow. The
third obstacle is that the industry sector is still vulnerable. Our industries still depend on imported raw- and
intermediate materials. The further
obstacle is the shortfall of energy supply.
The last identified obstacle is the weak position to deal with
overwhelming imports. Nowadays, imports
from China have flooded this country. Shortly
before AEC implemented, it is highly demanded that we must prepare our
strategic steps on such area of labor force, infrastructures, and industries.* (Makmur Gazali)
