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Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asian region, is making ready for the country's integration into ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 by improving competitiveness.
The implementation of the AEC would consequently make the economically vibrant region a single market and production base, a competitive economy, equitable development and fully integrated into global economy.
"Increasing the competitiveness is the essential task to face AEC by 2015 because there will be free flow of goods, services, investment, skilled labor and capital," said Rizal Affandi Lukman, an official of the Coordinating Economy Ministry.
Indonesia, the world's fourth populous country, has contributed 41 percent to the region's GDP with targeted growth of 6.3 percent this year. With steadily high growth, an estimated 90 million of its population could join middle class by 2030, Rizal said.
With continuing vibrant economy, ASEAN is set to become center of gravity for global economies with lucrative market which has 604 million population with 80 percent below 45 years old.
Moreover, the region posted 4.7 percent growth with total GDP of 2.18 trillion U.S. dollars in 2011. In a bid to enhance economic cooperation with other economies, ASEAN has set up free trade pacts with China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Rizal said that despite huge opportunity offered by the regional integration, Indonesia is still facing challenges at home with poor infrastructure and high logistic cost problems.
"Indonesia only allocates 2 percent of its GDP to build infrastructure, while the ideal level is 5 percent. Vietnam allocates 8 percent, while China allocates 10 percent to build their infrastructure," Rizal said in briefing the media on Indonesia's preparation towards ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) learned that Indonesia's construction of toll roads only grows by 3 percent per year.
"The poor road and infrastructure contributed to logistic problem as it disrupts distribution of goods to the consumers and producers," Rizal added.
Through orchestrated efforts involving government and private sector, Indonesia has addressed those problems by constructing massive infrastructure projects across the country through master plan of accelerating development process in Indonesia in 2011. It is expected that infrastructure in Indonesia would be sufficient to facilitate AEC in 2015.
Rizal added that Indonesia has stepped up efforts to make prime products more competitive in the integrated economy, such as textile and garments, electronics, automotive, chocolate and coffee, footwear and shrimps, and tourism.
It involves intense cooperation between government and stakeholders in related industries.
Those efforts were coordinated by supreme national committee particularly assigned to assure Indonesia's preparedness towards implementation of the AEC. The committee works under directions of the president himself, Rizal said.
