Facing A Political Lock-In Situation With The ACFTA: Which Options For Indonesia?

Apr 30th, 2010 | By Steven | Category: Economy, News, Resources

By Ivan Lim, Philipp Kauppert, FES Jakarta, March 2010

By signing a Free Trade Agreement with China, ASEAN expects to strengthen its bargaining position for international trade. Being one of the key members of ASEAN, Indonesia has been promoting ACFTA proactively.
For the supporters, ACFTA creates better opportunities for local business to export more goods to the important Chinese market and increases bilateral trade and investment across the region. For the opponents, ACFTA has the potential to seriously damage domestic industries and lead to mass layoffs.
The Indonesian Government is urged to take preventive measures in anticipating and compensating the negative impacts of ACFTA. Those efforts include renegotiating several tariff posts, granting fiscal incentives for the affected industries, improving the national infrastructure and reforming the deficient Social Security System.

Tags: ACFTA, Indonesia