At the 37th ASEAN Summit hosted by Vietnam on Thursday member states agreed on the framework for an ASEAN travel corridor arrangement (TCA) for essential business travelers.

Jokowi, attending the summit online, urged a swift, efficient move from the ASEAN coordination and sectoral boards to implement the measure. He said ASEAN should soon establish temporary fast lanes along with strict health protocols, including during departure and arrival, making use of regionally integrated digital platforms and determine ports of entry.

Jokowi had already proposed such an arrangement during an ASEAN Summit in June.

"I hope the ASEAN TCA can be in operation in the first quarter of next year,” Jokowi said in his speech to address the virtual plenary session of the summit on Thursday, as quoted by a press release from the Presidential Secretariat. “The arrangement will bring out optimism that our economic activities can be gradually activated while still maintaining discipline in implementing health protocols.”

"Our people cannot wait any longer; they want to see our region immediately rise up," he added.

ASEAN member states have been dealing with the pandemic rather differently, with some performing better than the others. On Wednesday, the ASEAN Biodiaspora Virtual Center (ABVC) reported that 1,012,993 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in the ASEAN region, with a total of 24,309 deaths -- almost half of them coming from Indonesia alone.

The region's largest economy has officially entered its first recession since the 1998 Asian financial crisis as its economy contracted by 3.49 percent in the third quarter this year, during which investment, exports and imports plunged, reflecting a global trade downturn.

ASEAN had seen declines of 71 percent in tourism, 12 percent in trade and 33 percent in foreign direct investment, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told the press, citing ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi.

Indonesia established a travel corridor with Singapore in October, allowing only urgent diplomatic missions and essential business trips. Prior to that, the government had established travel corridors with the United Arab Emirates and South Korea, allowing them to resume projects that were halted by the pandemic.

Aside from the declaration on the TCA, the summit had produced 32 other documents, including the ASEAN comprehensive recovery framework that laid out strategies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, Retno said.

The region had also prepared the COVID-19 ASEAN Emergency Response Fund amounting to US$10 million from various countries, as well as the ASEAN regional reserve of medical supplies for public health emergencies, in which member states voluntarily donate standardized medical supplies.

The summit will last until Sunday, during which the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Summit is to take place with 15 members of the landmark trade deal expected to sign the agreement.

Jokowi expressed his optimism on the benefits brought about by the RCEP, which would be the largest regional trade bloc in the world in terms of population and economic size should it come to fruition after eight years of talks.

Jokowi also attended on Thursday the ASEAN-China Summit, the ASEAN-South Korea summit, the ASEAN-Japan Summit and the ASEAN-India Summit, mainly focusing on economic recovery and health.

He expressed hope that Japan could have ASEAN as its main partner in terms of supply chain diversification and investment expansion, emphasizing as a priority efforts to strengthen health systems.

Jokowi said Indonesia would be ready to house the urgently needed ASEAN Center for Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases, with funding amounting to $50 million coming from the Japanese government.

Regarding China, Jokowi pointed to three joint efforts it should jointly make with the ASEAN for economic recovery: The digital economy transformation partnership, policy harmonization and the removal of trade barriers to maintain global supply chains. He also pointed to the importance of ensuring the availability of vaccines and medication in the region as part of the economic recovery.

"I appreciate China's commitment to participating in COVAX and turning vaccines into public goods," he said, referring to a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan co-led by the World Health Organization that aims to help buy and fairly distribute the vaccine.

Indonesia joined the initiative in September as it was also looking to secure vaccines currently in their final stage of clinical trials from at least three Chinese firms.

International relations expert Teuku Rezasyah urged the government not to lose the momentum over lacking preparation by identifying strategic partnerships rather than becoming a passive actor in the TCA.

Beyond such arrangements, Reza said, ASEAN should ideally have a solid voice as a unified bloc of some 650 million members when negotiating with vaccine-producing countries amid global tensions over the race for a COVID-19 vaccine. He said the region should make sure that vaccines would fall into the hands of the state rather than business players and avoid a vaccine monopoly.

“ASEAN countries are not very open [about vaccines], so we can only predict who's on the driver seat and who's on the passenger seat,” he said.

Epidemiologist Masdalina Pane said the travel corridor arrangement should proceed with travelers being released from quarantine only after attaining two negative results, one from pre-departure and another from post-arrival.

She said that, despite Indonesia generally imposing similar protocols with other ASEAN countries, it was on the implementation of testing, isolation and quarantine that the government should learn from others, especially when it came to suppressing the death rate.

According to the ABVC, the death rate in Indonesia is 3.34 percent, which compares to rates between 0.05 percent and 2.89 percent in other member states.

-- Dian Septiari and Marchio Irfan Gorbiano have contributed to this story.