Reform reflects vow of liberalization
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's deregulation package announced in May reflects its commitment to the liberalization of trade and investment in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, a Japanese executive said on Thursday.
"The move gives a sense that there is a strong drive in the direction of liberalization," Nobuo Tateisi, vice president of Omron Corporation of Japan, said at a seminar organized jointly by the Business Review Indonesia Forum and the Japan Institute for Social and Economic Affairs.
Tateisi is also one of the Japanese representatives in the Pacific Business Forum (PBF), which functions as an advisory body to APEC leaders.
On May 23, immediately prior to the first meeting of the PBF, the Indonesian government announced a deregulation package that lowered the tariffs on 6,030 items and removed restrictions on the importation of 81 items.
"This move was the subject of much discussion at the PBF meeting, and received strong praise for its impact on the steady implementation of the terms of the Bogor declaration," Tateisi said.
The Bogor declaration was the outcome of the second summit of the APEC leaders who gathered in Bogor, West Java, last November. The declaration laid down the target dates to liberalize trade and investment in the region by 2020 for the industrialized member economies and 2010 for the developing members.
Tateisi also praised Indonesia's move last year to ease foreign investment restrictions, when the ceiling on the amount of foreign investment was removed and the obligation to divest majority ownership in joint-venture companies was abolished.
"I very much hope that Indonesia continue with its efforts in this direction," Tateisi said at his keynote speech.
Comment
Commenting on the next APEC summit in Osaka, Japan, Tateisi said that the summit would draw up action guidelines to include specific details of the facilitation measures aimed at creating an environment conducive to promoting liberalization in each field.
In advance of next November's APEC summit, Masaya Miyoshi, president and director general of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), said that the federation had released a proposal on what should be done by Japan as the forum's incumbent leader.
"In light of the extreme diversity among APEC's members, Keidanren believes that the best approach is to encourage each member to voluntarily draft its own liberalization program," Miyoshi said.
He added that Keidanren called on Japan to serve as a model for liberalization. "Toward the Osaka meeting, Japan should do all it can to expand imports, and this means it should push resolutely forward with deregulation and cut its tariff rates further."
He explained that Keidanren has made a great number of recommendations on areas where regulations should be relaxed or abolished, and it was asking the Japanese government to take action on them.
"Another obvious need is for Japan to expand its official development assistance and in other ways extend greater cooperation with developing countries," Miyoshi said.
He added that Keidanren also urged APEC to faithfully observe the rules of the World Trade Organization, which took over from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on Jan. 1, this year. (rid)