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Provinces look to benefit from ASEAN
As more people in Indonesia become aware of ASEAN, expectations are growing that being part of the regional grouping will bring concrete benefits
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s more people in Indonesia become aware of ASEAN, expectations are growing that being part of the regional grouping will bring concrete benefits.
Local officials, scholars, businesspeople and journalists attending a workshop held by the Foreign Ministry in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Saturday, shot questions about what their regencies and provinces could get from Indonesia’s participation in ASEAN.
Prayitno Basuki from Mataram University said West Nusa Tenggara benefited from other ASEAN countries as it thousands of locals worked in ASEAN countries as migrant workers and the province exported products to neighboring countries.
In 2009, the province sent more than 33,000 workers to Malaysia and 32 to Singapore. The migrant workers in return sent home Rp 100 billion (US$11 million) and Rp 1.1 billion from Malaysia and Singapore respectively.
The province also exports a wide range of agricultural produce to the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, while thousands of ASEAN tourists also arrive in the province each year.
“We send workers and conduct trade with several ASEAN countries. But we really hope Indonesia’s chairmanship [of ASEAN this year] will bring more benefits to our region,” Prayitno said.
He said the province wanted access to more markets for its products and more protection for migrant workers.
“We also want ASEAN companies to invest more in our province,” Prayitno said.
However, legal instruments to protect migrant workers are still a far cry from becoming reality as states receiving the workers, especially Malaysia, continue to thwart attempts to create a legally binding agreement and do not want to acknowledge the status of illegal migrant workers.
“ASEAN can’t proceed if one country objects to a proposal. But we will try to work on creating a legally binding instrument to protect both legal and illegal migrant workers,” Indonesian Permanent Representative to ASEAN Ngurah Swajaya told the workshop.
Officials from various regencies in the province expressed hope that Indonesia’s chairmanship would mean that more tourists would visit the province.
The West Nusa Tenggara administration has tried to roll out the red carpet for tourists by constructing a new international airport so carriers from other ASEAN countries could fly directly to the province.
West Nusa Tenggara Governor Zainul Majdi said the new airport would officially open in July.
However, Ngurah said ASEAN had not agreed on an open skies agreement as Indonesia insists it would only five airports to take part in such a deal — Medan, Surabaya, Jakarta, Makassar and Denpasar — while other ASEAN countries, notably Singapore and Malaysia, want Indonesia to open the skies above all cities.
“We still need to protect local carriers from international competition. It’s also unfair to open our skies while Singapore as a city state, will only open one city,” he said.
Former Indonesian ambassador to Australia and co-chairman of the Ambassador Forum, Sabam Siagian, said concrete benefits that ASEAN had brought the country in the last 30 years included peace, which enabled countries in the region to forge ahead with uninterrupted economic development.
“Provinces in Indonesia such as West Nusa Tenggara have also reaped much from this favorable climate,” he said.
Foreign Ministry director general for ASEAN Djauhari Oratmangun said his office would continue to educate the public on ASEAN so they could take advantage of the grouping’s programs.
“At the end of the day, we want all people to benefit from our participation in ASEAN,” he said.
