AFTA to come into force without much fanfare
AFTA to come into force without much fanfare
Adianto P.Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The ASEAN Free Trade Area, more widely known as AFTA, will
come into force Tuesday without much fanfare, and with most
people across the country unaware of the significance of the
event.
Offices across the country will be closed Tuesday as people
across the world celebrate the start of the new year.
There isn't any ceremony to be held by the Indonesian
government to mark this historic moment, however.
No banners or notices have been disseminated by the government
in public places to raise the Indonesian public's awareness about
this important subject.
"There won't be any ribbon-cutting or special ceremony to mark
AFTA because, as a matter of fact, we have been implementing AFTA
for years by gradually reducing many of our import tariffs,"
Hatanto Reksodiputro, director general for International
cooperation at the ministry of industry and trade, told The
Jakarta Post.
AFTA was first formulated in 1992 during the Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit with implementation
originally scheduled for 2008. The time frame was later moved up
to 2003.
In a meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam in 1998, the AFTA Council
agreed to accelerate AFTA to Jan. 1, 2002. This was re-confirmed
in the council's meeting on Sept. 14, 2001, also in Hanoi.
AFTA will be first implemented in the six founding members of
ASEAN -- Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippine, Thailand and
Brunei Darussalam -- while the other members, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos and Myanmar will implement it between 2006 and 2010.
Under the AFTA scheme, each of the six founding member nations
will reduce most of their import tariffs to between zero, and
five percent.
Public ignorance continues to predominate, with many people
still thinking that AFTA will take effect in 2003.
Dessy Theresia, an employee of a Japanese firm in Central
Jakarta said she regretted the lack of information provided by
the government about the acceleration of the AFTA.
"As far as I know from books, AFTA will be implemented
starting 2003 -- I've never seen any advertising campaigns," she
told The Post.
Dessy said her friends did not care about AFTA because they
were not informed about it.
Agustin Goh, the director of PT TOEIC Center Indonesia, a
language instruction academy, said that he, too, was also unaware
about the early implementation of AFTA. "I heard nothing about
the acceleration," he said. "We hope the government will
officially announce it to the public."
He added that AFTA will benefit both Indonesian consumers and
business players.
"AFTA is good because it will force us (business people) to
boost our competitiveness and efficiency," he said.
In the beginning, he said, AFTA will become a serious problem
for Indonesia, because many cheaper products from other ASEAN
countries will flood the local market.
But this will change in time, he said, with AFTA coming to
benefit the country.