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s the Association of Young Indonesian Entrepreneurs (HIPMI) prepared to send a delegation to the recent ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Carnival and the second ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Council Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, the question was: what’s the reason for the indifference of Indonesian youth toward ASEAN?

On all three main pillars of ASEAN integration, Indonesia and its fellow ASEAN members are vastly behind schedule. HIPMI believes that a lack of youth engagement with the larger ASEAN community, both socially and economically, stems from a lack of infrastructure for young entrepreneurs and a lack of depth in education on ASEAN.

A prime example of entrepreneurship supporting infrastructure within ASEAN is that of Singapore. As early as 1989, the government sought to create a “milieu” in which entrepreneurship could flourish. This desire was shaped by the recession of 1985 and the realization that internal economic resilience could be supported by entrepreneurship on a small and medium enterprise (SME) level. The 1989 SME master plan and the 2000 SME21 master plan are the main foundations on which Singapore’s supremacy of entrepreneur infrastructure in ASEAN are built on.

The Singapore Productivity, Innovation and Growth (SPRING) Agency, working together with education and industry authorities, plays a pivotal role in developing talent and attracting world-class research and development and production/manufacturing to Singapore.

What difference does well-considered, well-implemented and sustained investment in entrepreneurial infrastructure make? In 2012, 56,778 new businesses were registered in Singapore. In the same year, Indonesia registered 47,549.

Superficially, there is support for entrepreneurs in Indonesia, but the entrepreneurial infrastructure has not changed much. The business sectors in which innovation occurs in Indonesia are not products of government policy but rather happened independently of any bureaucratic help.

And investment in entrepreneurial infrastructure does not mean direct equity investment or handouts for startups — it means having soft (regulatory regime, educational structure and quality, etc.) and hard (permanent startup space/communities, integrated education, industry and research collaboration geographies, etc.) infrastructure.

Some tech startups that are currently doing Indonesia proud are arguably doing well because there is a lack of regulatory clarity from the government. The track record of the government in supporting business through beneficial regulatory regimes is dire indeed — witness the law on mineral and coal mining.

The ASEAN Economic Community came into full effect on Jan. 1, and according to its establishing tenets should allow the free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labor and freer movement of capital across the region. The economy is only one facet of ASEAN integration.

An informal survey involving our members, however, revealed that close to none were aware of how exporting to fellow ASEAN members could potentially be faster and less cumbersome bureaucratically than exporting to, say, China or Brazil.

Internal studies by the ASEAN Secretariat and think tanks agree that the ASEAN Economic Community’s benefits for entrepreneurs are not well understood at all in Indonesia.

In 2007, the ASEAN Studies Center at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute (Malaysia) undertook a survey of university students in ASEAN titled “Awareness and Attitudes Towards ASEAN”. The only university surveyed in Indonesia in 2007 was the University of Indonesia. When the study was updated in 2014, University of Syiah Kuala, Aceh and Nusa Cendana University in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, were added to the Indonesian survey population. Over seven years, a small increase was noted in positive attitudes toward ASEAN and recognition of the flag — meaning that so very little has been achieved.

Had the surveys included questions on practicable knowledge of how to do business in ASEAN, surely the results would have been calamitous. If we do not equip and educate our young citizens, aside from endangering their economic welfare, we risk creating an environment in which defensive nationalism becomes the norm instead of engagement with our ASEAN peers, potentially setting the scene for a Brexit-like situation.

The reality is that Indonesia was one of the last countries to make a concerted effort to have ASEAN-related courses in high-school and university. Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta opened Indonesia’s first ASEAN Studies Center in 2013. How can Indonesia accelerate acceptance of ASEAN among those most in need, and how can we prepare those most ill-equipped for intra-ASEAN competition if nobody is sharing practical and actionable information? Singapore set up its first ASEAN Studies Center in 2008 and Malaysia in 2004.

Aside from ASEAN-related instruction, our education system is not set up to give graduates money-earning skills upon release into the wild, without any practical work experience for the knowledge-based economy.

In contrast, a higher education survey by the Research Centre for Tertiary Education and Qualifications at Kyushu University in Japan revealed that as early as 2002, 85.3 percent of graduates in Japan and 53.9 percent in Germany had undergone work experience during university, showing the development of practical skills to be well entrenched in the educational system.

The good news is that with the current Cabinet, fresh from a reshuffle, there is a real chance of putting a long-term plan in place to ensure that Indonesia’s youth are competitive in ASEAN. While conglomerates undeniably remain an integral part of Indonesia’s economy, boosting entrepreneurship will increase the nation’s resilience and more equitably distribute socioeconomic welfare.

We pin our hope on the government to set in place a road map that will in the short to medium term put Indonesia’s entrepreneurial infrastructure on a par with our intra-ASEAN rivals. Show Indonesia’s youth what ASEAN is really about, how to take advantage of the benefits of the trade bloc, provide them with infrastructure, and they will do the rest themselves.
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The author is a member of the international affairs division at the Association of Young Indonesian Entrepreneurs (HIPMI) and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin)