H

ost Indonesia finally reached its target of winning the ASEAN Skills Competition having made astonishing progress in human resources development over the past two years.

The Indonesian team taking part in the 20 skills contested during the week-long competition that ended on Tuesday, garnered a total of 19 golds, 12 silver and two bronze medals clobbering opposition from eight other ASEAN member countries. It also won seven medallions of excellence.

Vietnam could only muster five golds, four silvers and five bronzes to be distant runners-up, while Thailand, which won the biennial competition in Bangkok in 2010, could only scrape together a total of 11 medals, leaving them in third place.

“We appreciate the Indonesian team’s performance and I am personally proud of their dominance in winning the competition. It is the first time Indonesia has won the competition since it was first held in 1993,” Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said during the closing ceremony here on Tuesday.

He said Indonesia’s supremacy in the competition showed the incredible progress made in developing the quality of human resources and indicated that the younger generation had been able to compete with other countries at the ASEAN regional level.

“For the victory, the government will give a special appreciation and prizes — scholarships and promotions — to the glorious Indonesian participants who won medals in such a range of skills,” Muhaimin said.

The Indonesian contingent harvested medals in automotive technology, IT system administration, web design, mechanical engineering design, cabinet making, industrial automation, fashion technology (especially beauty therapy), hairdressing and mechatronics.

“Following Indonesia’s embarrassing failure to subjugate the opposition in Bangkok [in 2010], the government coordinated closely with relevant companies to execute intensive training for 42 young workers to represent out national interests in the arena.

“Thank God, our team could bring all their powers to bear during the competition,” he said, adding that the country would continue improving the quality of Indonesian participants in the next two years to maintain this record in the next competition in Vietnam in 2014.

A total of 252 young workers grouped in nine teams from ASEAN members took part in the competition and more than 250 experts were deployed as juries.

ASEAN members are Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Myanmar did not join in.