Smartcitymakassar.com. --Makassar- ASEAN
Community or widely known as ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), has been put into
effect since end of 2015. 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 agreed 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 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 labours, and capital
among ASEAN countries. For Indonesia,
apart from these impacts, 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 labours (or around 64% of the total Indonesia labor force)
is at SMP level (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 labour force, infrastructures, and industries.* (Makmur Gazali)
