I

ndonesia is not ready to join the Asia-Pacific free trade plan discussed during the recent summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Yokohama, Japan, a senior economic minister says.

Indonesia prefers the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Round free trade plan over the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said in Jakarta on Thursday.

“Not all APEC members have agreed to implement the plan in the near future. Indonesia thinks that it’s better if we finish the Doha Round discussion first,” Hatta said.

Members of the WTO have attempted to liberalize global trade but could not realize the plan on schedule due to the deadlock of the Doha Round talks since 2008.

Hatta said free trade might hamper Indonesia’s national interests since it had to remove import tariffs on many kinds of products.

“We have to pay attention to our readiness [before accepting free trade]. We have to strengthen our institutions first,” he said.

Trade Minister Marie Elka Pangestu said tightening economic cooperation among APEC member countries was more important than free trade. Cooperation should focus on improving each country’s industrial capacities.

Strengthening existing cooperation is important to allow less developed member countries to close the gap with more developed ones, Marie said.

“Every country’s leader has to pay attention to the different conditions and economic status of APEC member countries,” she said after the closing ceremony of the organization’s summit last week.

In a bid to improve member countries’ industrial capacity, APEC created a framework and an action plan to be implemented in 2015 to improve the connectivity and supply of goods among members,
Marie said.

“To optimize business relations among members, [APEC] has also decided to improve five main prioritized areas: procedures on starting businesses, credit access, border trade, business contract implementation and business permit applications,” she said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

In the future, APEC should strengthen its cooperation with other international forums like the Group of 20 (G20), and implement agreements or commitments made by those forums. APEC agreed to accelerate the completion of the Doha Round discussion and expected agreements to be made by 2011, she said.

“To improve the role of APEC in the future, Indonesia stresses the importance of economic cooperation among members and the improvement of their industrial capacities. It’s also important to keep multilateral trade in the Asia-Pacific region fair for every member,” she said.

APEC represents 44 percent of the world’s trade and 53 percent of global economic output.

—JP/ Rangga D. Fadillah