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Foreign, trade ministries' nomenclature change requires ‘deliberate thinking’
Experts have aired concerns about a plan to merge certain functions of the trade and foreign ministries, as President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo keeps his cards close to his chest ahead of the cabinet announcement.
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Stronger ties: Vice President Jusuf Kalla (center), accompanied by Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan (fourth right), Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (sixth left) and Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita (fifth left), as well as heads of Indonesia-Africa Forum (IAF) delegations, strikes a traditional musical instrument during the opening ceremony of the conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, on April 10. (Antara/Nyoman Budhiana)
W
ith less than a week left until President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s inauguration for a second term, a heated debate has resurfaced among businesses and analysts over a plan to put the Trade Ministry’s international trade functions under the Foreign Ministry.
Observers are wondering how far the new government might go in making fundamental structural changes to the ministry’s nomenclature and fear it may take too much precious time and energy away from more important tasks and might even increase business uncertainty.
Yose Rizal Damuri, lead economic researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said any plan to revise the Cabinet nomenclature required “deliberate thinking”.
Dissolving and moving functions from the Trade Ministry to the Foreign Ministry, he said, had to be well planned, considering it might not be fully accomplished within a year or two.
“It is not a smart move. We can learn from what we have done [regarding nomenclature changes in other ministries] in the last period,” Yose told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
From a legal perspective, Jokowi is unlikely to follow through with the plan, as Law No.7/2014 on trade stipulates that international trade, along with domestic trade, is the domain of “a minister responsible for conducting government affairs related to trade”.
“If the nomenclature is to be changed, the law must first be revised,” Yose said, noting that any revision would take an even longer time to issue.
