On Saturday, February 6th 2016, Professor of International Law Universitas Indonesia (UI), Prof. Hikmahanto Juwana, SH., LL.M., Ph.D gave his scientific speech in UI Graduation Ceremony for 2015/2016 odd semester at Balairung UI, Depok. The scientific speech was titled “ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) & Its Challenge for Indonesia : an Attempt to Define the Impact of AEC Implementation for Indonesia from International Trade Law’s Perspective”.
He explained that there are 7 challenges that is being faced by Indonesia related AEC implementation. The first one is about our capability to put our national interest on AEC policymakers forum while the second one is the responsibility to accept the flow of goods and services among ASEAN members. It can be used by the entrepreneurs to build manufacture in other country, though the markets are for Indonesia.
The phenomenon is closely related to the third challenge, that is the entrepreneur’s reluctance to invest in Indonesia due to extortion and complicated regulation. The investors will use ASEAN joint tax rates that is maximum 5% instead of facing complicated regulation and extortion in Indonesia.
The fourth challenge is about standardization of goods, quality and human resources of Indonesia that have not prepared well in order to face free competition era of AEC.
The fifth challenge is aboutt the domestic entrepreneur who are still depending on government’s support. Government should not pamper the entrepreneur anymore, so they could compete on they own without government’s support.
The sixth challenge is AEC implementation should be applied to the whole society, in rural as well as city area.
The final challenge is the policy that is made on AEC policymakers forum should not be debated in law domain, thus those policies should be applied. In Juwana’s perspective, the solution for all of this issue is on education and changing the mindset.
“Government should allocate adequate educational costs, not only for big cities, but also remote areas,” said him.
Mindset also needs to be changed. Innovation should be supported instead of making it complicated. Not only government’s mindset, but also society’s mindset.
“There should be no more case like Dr. Warsito with his cancer therapy or Kusrin with his television assembly that led to violence. They supposed to be supported by government and society so that they could be an excellent entrepreneur,” added him.
Human resources empowerment and mental changing are two important keys to answers AEC implementation challenge for Indonesia.
