board of editors · 2017-08-24 · vision beyond 2015 – its friends stand by in support,...

Board of Editors Edy Prasetyono

Evi Fitriani Bantarto Bandoro

Managing Editor Shofwan Al Banna Choiruzzad

Financial Manager Yuni Reti Intarti

Supporting Team Santi H. Paramitha

Layout & Cover Design Ivan Sanjaya

ASEAN Insights is a monthly newsletter which aims to provide important insights on ASEAN issues. The newsletter is published by ASEAN Study Center, Faculty of

Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, with the support from the Mission of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN.

From the Editors

Contents

Articles

Australia and ASEAN: 40 Years of Partnership

1

The East Asian Summit: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

4

Looking Forward to 2015: Indonesia Must Be Optimistic

7

ASEAN Updates ASEAN Moves Forward with Public-Private Partnership

11

ASEAN Plus Three to Heighten the Ebola Preparedness and Response

11

ASEAN Welcomes New Master Trainers and Assessors for Food & Beverage Service

12

Dear Readers, Happy new year! January is the month of reflection. People are looking back at their steps behind and devising plans for the future. For ASEAN, ASEAN Member Countries, and their people, this month of reflection is becoming more special because ASEAN Community is expected to be implemented by the end of this year. This January edition of ASEAN Insights takes thisreflective ‘spirit of the season’ happily. In this edition, we would like to present discussions about the past, present, and the future of ASEAN. The first article, by His Excellency Ambassador Simon Merrifield, discussed the 40 years of cooperation between ASEAN and Australia and what we should expect for the future. The second article, by BantartoBandoro, elaborates the prospect of East Asia Summit and its impacts for the region. Last but not least, Padang Wicaksono from the Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia, argued that Indonesia should be optimistic in welcoming the ASEAN Economic Community 2015.

With best wishes, Managing Editor

Shofwan Al Banna Choiruzzad

Vol 8/January/2015

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

ASEAN Study Center Department of International Relations Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Indonesia Nusantara 2 Building, 2nd Floor Depok, West Java - Indonesia Tel & Fax: +6221 7873744 email: aseanstudycenter@ui,ac,id

Autralia and ASEAN: 40 Years of Partnership HE Mr Simon Merrifield

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2014 was a landmark year for ASEAN-Australia relations, marking 40 years since Australia became ASEAN’s first dialogue partner. At the ASEAN-Australia Commemorative Summit last November, leaders elevated relations to a strategic partnership, acknowledging the road travelled together so far and renewing a sense of joint purpose in promoting security, prosperity and people-to-people engagement in this corner of the world. Back when this deep and multifaceted relationship began, Australia’s Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, said that of all the regional arrangements in Southeast Asia, “…ASEAN was unquestionably the most important, the most relevant, the most natural.” Those words resonate today, because we see ASEAN as a great success story and essential to preserving a stable, prosperous region. What has been good for ASEAN has been good for Australia. These are important times as ASEAN members enter the final year in preparing for the ASEAN Community. Much has been achieved on these ambitions and difficult challenges remain, but regardless of scorecard metrics, the fact is that ASEAN is one of the most successful regional groupings on the planet.

When ASEAN formed in 1967 few would have counted on things working out quite so well. But through vision, leadership and a deeply ingrained habit of consultation, ASEAN has defined Southeast Asia’s stability and prosperity. That has been profoundly important for Southeast Asia and hardly less so for the wider region. ASEAN matters to Australia. But to understand the present we should look back just a bit, for while ASEAN has a lot of newer partners, Australia is an old friend – not just through our 40 years of dialogue partnership, but through close relations with Southeast Asian countries individually since the end of World War II. We have long had embassies in all ASEAN capitals, where Australian representatives have worked hard to play a useful role and make a difference. In some countries, we had the privilege of helping on the path to independence, such as our UN Good Offices role in Indonesia in the 1940s.In others, we have played an active diplomatic role at critical points, such as our campaign in support of the formation of Malaysia in 1963, or our key role in Cambodia’s Paris Peace Accords. We have been a key development partner for many years. From the 1950s, tens of thousands of Southeast Asian scholars received higher education in our universities under the Colombo Plan.

Australia and ASEAN: 40 Years of Partnership HE Mr Simon Merrifield

Members of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN join hands the ASEAN Way together with Ambassador Simon Merrifield, Australia's first ever resident

Ambassador to ASEAN, before commencing the 4th ASEAN-Australia JCC at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on 25 September 2014.


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We have long-running development partnerships bilaterally with ASEAN members who see a role for our assistance – Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, covering a wide range of sectors, from connectivity to health to education. Australia’s appreciation of ASEAN is not sentimental or stuck in the past. Far from it, for our economic partnership is on a trajectory like never before. Back in 1974, who would have foreseen that by 2014, ASEAN would be Australia’s second-largest trading partner? But that’s what it is: a larger trading partner for us than Japan, than the EU, than the US. With our $92 billion trade relationship, ASEAN is second only to China. And this figure is more than double what it was a decade ago. This is not a relationship standing still. Trade grows for many reasons, but Australia and ASEAN have worked hard to create the right conditions for growth. Such as negotiating a quality free trade agreement known as AANZFTA – the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. This was something we both wanted, though ASEAN had concerns about capacity constraints: how could Member States negotiate in their own best interests, and be confident they were doing so? To deal with that, Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN set up a facility in the ASEAN Secretariat to enhance the abilities of Member States to understand and deal with complex and technical procedures crucial to trade: rules of origin, certification, customs, intellectual property and competition policy. Through collaborating on something as substantial as AANZFTA, our trade officials built up remarkable mutual understanding and respect, and the ambition to do more. That is reflected in ASEAN’s bold RCEP initiative – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which seeks a high-quality agreement among 16 diverse countries. Quite apart from collaborating on FTAs, Australia has long been working with the ASEAN Secretariat on economic issues, which in more recent years has had a clear focus on the move towards the AEC. In its current form, this facility is known as the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program II, but this is in fact the grandchild of the ASEAN-Australia Economic Cooperation Program, which began in 1974.These programs are not about what Australia thinks ASEAN needs, but about what ASEAN itself identifies as priorities.

So our programs focus on agreed high-priority AEC Blueprint activities: services, investment, agriculture, connectivity and financial integration. Trade and economic cooperation is a dominant story of the ASEAN-Australia partnership, but it’s not the only story. For instance, we take a close interest in ASEAN’s work on disaster management, including as a supporter of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, or the AHA Centre. Since it began in late 2011, the AHA Centre has supported ASEAN responses to disasters seven times, each time reflecting its growing capacity. Southeast Asia’s transformation since 1967 has been astonishing. ASEAN’s famed habits of consultation have made a critical contribution. Building on this, ASEAN has a key role in helping all of us successfully manage the changing strategic dynamics in the region, including among the major players. ASEAN centrality serves a strategic purpose in helping to balance these dynamics. ASEAN can make the most of this centrality with active management of some of the region’s sensitive issues, including ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. This is why it’s important for members of the broader region to invest in building up ASEAN-led mechanisms for dealing with security and strategic issues. This why Australia has attached great store to those processes that have brought together ASEAN members with the wider region–including as a founding member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 20 years ago. Australia also sees opportunity for the region with the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+). With disputed territories in our region giving rise to the risk of miscalculation, the ADMM+’s fostering of mil-mil cooperation is of immense value –efforts to build relationships between services has a vital role in our regional security, complementing both the ARF and the East Asia Summit (EAS). From Australia’s perspective, the EAS is the premier regional forum: it is a leaders-led process, it includes all ASEAN members together with all the key players in the region, with the United States, China and India at the one table, and it has the mandate to address the most compelling issues of our times. With ASEAN at its centre, the EAS represents a potential anchor for our region’s peace and a stabiliser for our region in challenging times.


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Australia’s aspiration for the EAS is for it to build confidence and nurture a culture of dialogue and collaboration. We also want the EAS to ensure that regional financial and economic integration keeps moving forward, binding our economies together and deepening our mutual interest in thwarting future financial crises. And we also see the EAS as a vehicle to address the transnational issues of our times. In all of this our objective should be to nurture habits of consultation across the region. Consultation, as ASEAN has taught us, can make the search for solutions easier. Since the ASEAN Charter came into force, ASEAN has been looking increasingly outwards to the world. So as ASEAN contemplates its next big step – framing its vision beyond 2015 – its friends stand by in support, confident that the great ASEAN ambition of fostering stability and promoting prosperity will continue to project out onto a broader canvas. A key feature of our future relationship with ASEAN will be the culture of two-way partnership. This notion – that Australia has much to learn from our friends in the region – underpins the thinking behind the New Colombo Plan, our scheme to provide opportunities to young Australians to live, study and work in Asia. People-to-people links lie at the heart of any successful partnership. That is the basis for the Australian Government’s decision to establish an Australian-ASEAN Councilto initiate and support activities designed to enhance awareness, links and understanding between people and institutions in Australia and ASEAN. So there are some new things for the ASEAN-Australia relationship, which sit proudly among many of our mature commitments to our Southeast Asian friends. Our vision for the future of our engagement is about building on the strengths of the past, not replacing them. We remain committed to helping ASEAN narrow the development gap, by sustaining our $1 billion plus aid investment among the less well-off ASEAN members. We remain committed to supporting ASEAN connectivity, reflected in such concrete terms by that first bridge over the Mekong 20 years ago and many, many projects since. And we remain committed to supporting the ASEAN Community 2015 vision, through our programs designed to support Member States identify and overcome the challenges to achieving economic integration.

Looking ahead, our friends across ASEAN can continue to count on Australia as an old friend, committed to assisting a stable and prosperous Southeast Asia as a key element of our own stability and prosperity. But we are an old friend open to new ways. As we move forward, we so in partnership, investing jointly in a prosperous future to the benefit of us all.

HE Mr Simon Merrifield Australian Ambassador to the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Simon Merrifield has been Australia’s Ambassador to ASEAN since September 2013. He has a long

association with Southeast Asia, starting as an exchange student in Indonesia in the mid-1980s followed by diplomatic assignments in Manila,

Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. Prior to his current role, Mr Merrifield was Senior Spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The East Asian Summit Bantarto Bandoro

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The Ninth East Asia Summit (EAS) was held in Naypyidaw, Myanmar (Burma) on November 12–13 2014. It is an annual meeting of national leaders from the East Asian region and adjoining countries. The idea of EAS came out in 2005 and it originally had 16 members: the 10 members of ASEAN, the ASEAN 'plus three' (China, Japan and South Korea) as well as Australia, India and New Zealand. In 2011, Russia and the US joined as part of their respective efforts to signal greater interest and political engagement in the region The EAS was created to provide a leaders' level meeting that had a broad policy remit. If APEC focuses on economic matters, the EAS mandate is for the full spectrum of government activity. It is anchored in ASEAN and thus has the necessary 'ASEAN centrality' to ensure the role played by the Southeast Asian grouping. The Summit took place at a time when the region is facing myriad of challenges stemming from regional strategic changes. It is against such background that the Summit then reaffirmed the importance of the EAS as a Leaders-led Forum for strategic dialogue and cooperation on political, security, economic and social issues of common regional concern and a range of complex challenges facing the region. In addition to that, the Summit also reaffirmed its support for ASEAN Community building process and they looked forward to the establishment of the ASEAN Community by the end of 2015. Leaders attended the Summit reiterated their support for ASEAN central role in the EAS and its commitment to working closely with regional partners. The EAS has grown its stature since its genesis in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the establishment of the East Asian Summit.

The leaders therefore agreed that it continues to play a key role in building an open, transparent, inclusive and participatory regional architecture. The Summit, as the previous ones, is a recognition that new regional architecture is required to ensure peace and prosperity in a region that now accounts for over half of world economic activity and will be the center of the twenty first century security concerns. The EAS is perceived as the most balance of the regional architecture, because it is ASEAN based and includes all the major powers. If the EAS is portrait from the perspective of grand strategy, it could be the most capable regional structure to achieve the goal of accommodating the ambitions of major powers, building trust and transparency in key areas such as security, politics, trade, finance.

The East Asian Summit: Looking Back, Looking Ahead Bantarto Bandoro

Beijing, China Military, Luther Bailey (Flickr: Creative Commons)


5

Since EAS aims to build a much more resilient, stable and integrated region, the leaders pledged to encourage efforts to further enhance regional economic integration in the East Asia region. Noting the EAS participating countries accounted for more than half of the world’s population and more that 50 percent of global GDP, the leaders in the Summit underscored the importance of ensuring the economic well-being of the people in the region. This suggests that regional economic integration would contribute to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and beyond. The EAS has always been seen as a historic gathering and is indeed an Asian meeting. It could pave the way for the creation of a permanent East Asian community, the equivalent of the European Union or, in its initial stages at least, the former European Economic Community. The Summit has always been held at a time when the countries in the region, individually or collectively, are intensifying their economic interdependence, as witnessed by the flourishing of intraregional trade. The growing need for cooperation and integration among Asian countries dictates that East Asian countries get together and move toward forming one community. With the 2014 Summit and the future Summits, East Asia countries will achieve a kind of miracle in terms of peace, politics, economic growth and prosperity. The spirit of creating prosperity and growth-based regional peace has led the countries of the region to accept the importance of fresher and more organized multilateral mechanisms for projecting a much stronger East Asian voice on regional and global issues. It is against such background that the Summit in Myanmar raised a broad range of issues, from non-traditional security to other regional and international issues such as Korean Peninsula, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and maritime security and cooperation. The region hopes the 2014 East Asian Summit will yield to a more bona fide regional community with shared challenges, common aspirations and parallel destinies.

By stressing economic cooperation rather than political and strategic-defense links, the summit will use the economic sector, including trade, investment and finance, as the catalyst for a comprehensive community-building process. The summit is a clear reflection of the common understanding reached by East Asian countries. They are out to create an arena that will attract massive investment to the region, turning it into a major growth area in the Asia Pacific. Whether the summit will eventually result in the formation of a real East Asian community in the future is a question each capital will have to answer for itself. Community, however, provides space for integrating more deeply elements of cooperation already in place or setting aside, if not eliminating, sources of suspicion and partial hostility. So, through the summit, East Asian leaders are attempting to create a kind of integrated mental image for East Asians. It is assumed that East Asian states will interact, link with each other and learn to live with each other because they feel that they "belong together", at least economically. This presumably will result in a greater unity as well as greater regional self-help. However, the political reality might prove to be just the opposite, given that East Asia does not have a long history of collective action. In addition, the Asian style of diplomacy typically shows a preference for dialog over binding decision-making. Despite the intensive and extensive interaction among East Asian countries over the past few years, in the economic as well as the political fields, such interaction has not necessarily led to a positive attitude among those East Asian countries that interact with each other. With all the agreements, consensus or declarations adopted at the 2014 East Asian Summit, the leaders of the East Asian countries might imagine they are building some sort of a norms-based community, because community usually entails norms to guide the behavior of members. But even this will not necessarily contribute to a spirit of East Asian community among those that abide by the collective norms.


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Thus, what we will actually see is not what East Asian leaders have long dreamed of, that is an integrated regional framework of cooperation, but a community marked rather by suspicion, distrust, individualism and perhaps unwillingness to sacrifice a minimum of national autonomy for the sake of pursuing collective and collaborative action. An East Asia community is one that is supposed to convey the idea of certain economic, social and security bonds stemming from proximity, common interests, neighborhood, friendship and so forth. But the East Asian community will later find that with its competing state interests continue to exist -- for example China vs Japan, the U.S. vs China, or China and South Korea vs Japan, policy preferences and views, conflicts within the community will remain inevitable and the road to a solid and integrated East Asian regional framework of cooperation will definitely not be smooth. ASEAN would then have to decide whether it is worthwhile for them to be a part, if not in the lead, of such a community, if it is truly the desire of its leaders, given the perceived concern in ASEAN itself that in a region-wide arrangement it would be overwhelmed by the much larger East Asia region. The question is perhaps whether ASEAN can serve as an engine to propel or effectively and successfully manage the process of building an East Asian community and sustaining the interests of its partners. If not, ASEAN might as well put its nest in order first. The working practice of ASEAN should generate a more dynamic policy setting within the forum. The East Asian Summit is near to its decade of existence. Due to the increasingly overcrowded Asian regional architecture, the East Asian Summit may face risk of marginalization. It is therefore important for ASEAN not only to keep its centrality, but also to develop some kind of agreed new approach and mechanism to address regional problems that cannot be handled independently.

Bantarto Bandoro is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of

International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia

Looking Forward to 2015: Indonesia Must Be Optimistic Padang Wicaksono

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Some observers, if not many, particularly many Indonesian producers and workers, have been doubtful about the impact of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) for Indonesia. In contrast, I should argue that the AEC, which will come into effect in 2015, will give, at least, much greater opportunities for many Indonesians instead of threats. This short essay will clarify the reasons and figure out some evidences to support such kind of optimism. Under auspices of AEC 2015, ASEAN would be transformed into a single market and production base which should consist of five core elements: (a) free flow of goods, (b) free flow of services, (c) free flow of investment, (d) freer flow of capital, and (e) free flow of skilled labors (ASEAN, 2008). Due to data limitation, hence I will focus the discussion on (a), (c), and (e) issues. Free Flow of Goods As GDP per capita (in PPP$) almost doubled within 11 years (from PPP$ 2882 in 2000 to PPP$ 5581 in 2011), economic integration among ASEAN member countries have progressed remarkably (ASEAN, 2013a). This remarkable progress of ASEAN economic integration was mainly the result of substantial reduction in tariff barriers ASEAN member states (ASEAN, 2013a).

As tariff barriers were rapidly been reduced, trade flows of goods within ASEAN member countries (intra-ASEAN total trade which consists of export + import) have risen swiftly within eight years from US$ 260.9 billion in 2004 to US$ 598.2 billion in 2011, which is more than double (ASEAN, 2013b). Similarly, for the same years, the extra-ASEAN total trade (ASEAN trade with the rest of the world) has also more than doubled from US$ 428.1 billion in 2004 to US$ 914.8 billion in 2011, which shares 75% of total ASEAN trade (ASEAN, 2013b). In addition, the intra-industry trade among ASEAN member countries gets increased for more developed members such as Singapore and Malaysia. Nevertheless,

despite a modest decline since 2009 to 2011, the intra-industry trade index value for Indonesia has improved during 2004-2011 (ASEAN, 2013b). The improvement of Indonesia’s intra-industry trade index value means two things. First, Indonesia becomes more integrated with ASEAN trading bloc hence the value of the intra-industry trade index of Indonesia has increased. Second, Indonesia has increasingly become a major destination of FDI (as explained later in the next section) as a reflection of multinational companies in expanding their production operation in Indonesia to take advantage of cheaper resources and largely emerging market. Hence, the improvement of intra-industry trade index value of Indonesia was driven by back-and-forth trade of intermediate goods. Free Flow of Investment Within 11 years the FDI inflow to ASEAN region has tremendously increased from US$ 21.81 billion in 2000 to US$ 114.11 billion in 2011, which is slightly more than quintuple (ASEAN, 2013a). Meanwhile, during the period, particularly the three earlier ASEAN founders i.e. Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia have greatly benefited from this inward FDI.


Junior School Student in Indonesia, Imam kurniawan (Flickr: Creative Commons)


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Furthermore, intra-ASEAN inward FDI during the same years has remarkably quadrupled from $853.0 million in 2000 to $26.3 billion in 2011, particularly since 2010 Singapore and Indonesia have mostly benefited the inflow of this kind of FDI (see Figure 1). Overall, Singapore and Indonesia have dominated the total FDI- inflow-to-ASEAN (intra + extra ASEAN) portion particularly over the last three years of 2011, 2012, and 2013 (ASEAN Foreign Direct Investment Statistics Database as of 1 August 2014). As a country with long colonial occupation history, many Indonesian seem allergic with the role and influence of foreign investors. They prefer indigenous investors to foreigners to avoid foreign domination over national economy. Nevertheless, to catch up developed countries, Indonesia needs FDI which brings advanced knowledge, managerial experiences, and technology capabilities necessary for Indonesians. Moreover, FDI is important to absorb massive labor force. Free Flow of Skilled Labors Despite many Indonesian observers remain skeptical about Indonesian workers capacity to compete abroad, I shall argue that Indonesian workers are more likely to capture greater opportunities. This argument is based on some evidences:

Rising HDI Value Over the last more than 20 years, Indonesia’s HDI value and its component indices have substantially improved (see Figure 2). The country’s HDI value has climbed from previously low human development category (0.471) in 1980 to medium human development category (0.684) in 2013, an increase of more than 40 percent or 1.14 percent annually.

Figure 1 Intra-ASEAN inward FDI, 2005-2011 Source: ASEAN (2013a, p. 51, Figure II.15)

Figure 2 Trends in Indonesia’s HDI and its component indices, 1980-2013

Source: UNDP (2014, p.2, Figure 1).


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Moreover, such its component indices have also improved significantly. Over the last 23 years, the Indonesia’s life expectancy at birth has increased slightly more than 12 years from 58.6 year old in 1980 to 70.8 year old in 2013. Meanwhile, the expected years of schooling and mean years of schooling have progressively increased by four years from 8.7 years in 1980 to 12.7 years in 2013 and around four years from 3.1 years in 1980 to 7.5 years in 2013 respectively.

From the perspective of standard of living, which is measured by income index represented by GNI per capita (2011 PPP$), the Indonesians income per capita has tripled from PPP$ 2,931 in 1980 to PPP$ 8,970 in 2013 (despite the rising disparity between rich and poor) (Papanek et.al, 2014). In comparison with such selected neighboring countries as Thailand and Vietnam, Indonesia is in between of those countries, higher than Vietnam but lower than Thailand (see figure 3). Meanwhile, compared with other medium HDI countries (average of 0.614), Indonesia’s HDI value in 2013 (0.684) is above them but below the average of HDI value of East Asia and Pacific group (0.703). Competitive wage of skilled workers Human capital theory predicts that labor migration will flow from regions have relatively poor earnings possibilities to regions where chances to earn better earnings are greater (Ehrenberg &Smith, 2006). Based on theory, under the assumption that all other things held constant (similar skills standards), then Indonesian professional and technical workers whose average monthly wages are much lower than other same ASEAN founding countries (see figure 4) are supposed to migrate to those countries to have greater opportunities to earn better wages. If this prediction comes true then it will be great advantage for Indonesian skilled labors.

Figure 3 Indonesia’s HDI in comparison with neighboring countries, 1980-2013 Source: UNDP (2014, p.3, Figure 2).

Figure 4 Indonesia’s Professional and Technical Wages in comparison with neighboring countries

Source: ASEAN (2013, p.59, Figure II.22). Note: Average monthly wages, PPP$, 2000–2011.


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Conclusion In sharp contrast to mostly pessimistic opinions regarding the future of AEC for Indonesia, this short essay has figured out that Indonesia is likely to tap much benefit from this regional agreement at least in three aspects, namely trade in goods, FDI inflow, and competitively skilled workers. In the aspect of flow of goods, with the improvement of Indonesia’s intra-industry trade index value, the country’s business entities are more likely to have greater opportunities to rapidly expand not only domestic market but also foreign market. Consequently, Indonesia’s enterprises will be stimulated further to stay more competitive to capture greater market. In the aspect of investment flow, with remarkably increased trend of FDI flow to Indonesia, the country is more likely to have greater chance to become a hub of production network of multinational corporations. If it comes true, then FDI, particularly in labor intensive sectors, will enlarge employment opportunities for Indonesian labor force. On free flow of skilled workers issue, rather than concerning the threat, with well improved HDI value and competitive wage of skilled workers, then Indonesians should consider the greater opportunities for tapping the benefit of freer mobility of labors across ASEAN countries. It noteworthy for many Indonesians to open mind that labor market is not only limited to domestic market but also wholly encompassing ASEAN market.

References ASEAN. (2008). ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat. ASEAN. (2013a). ASEAN Community Progress Monitoring System Full Report 2012. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat. ASEAN. (2013b). Statistics to Track Progress: ASEAN Integration Inched Up To 2015. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat. Ehrenberg, Ronald G., and Robert S. Smith. (2006). Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy(Ninth Edition). New York: Pearson Addison-Wesley. Papanek, Gustav F., Raden Pardede, and Suahasil Nazara. (2014). The Economic Choices Facing the Next President. Jakarta: Center for Public Policy Transformation. UNDP. (2014). “Explanatory note on the 2014 Human Development Report composite indices: Indonesia”. Human Development Report 2014:Sustaining Human Progress:Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience. New York: UNDP.

Padang Wicaksono is an associate professor of labor economics at the Department of

Economics, University of Indonesia. He received BA at University of Indonesia in Economics, and PhD at The University of Tokyo in Labor

Economics.

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ASEAN Plus Three to Heighten the Ebola Preparedness and Response

BANGKOK, 16 December 2014 - The ASEAN Plus Three Health

Ministers gathered for the Special Meeting on Ebola

Preparedness and Response on December. The meeting

discussed about the ways forward of strengthening regional

mechanisms and increasing national capacity to prevent the

Ebola as well as other emerging infectious diseases pandemics.

H.E. General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand, delivered the speech on the opening ceremony, while H.E Le

Luong Minh, Secretary General of ASEAN, also attended the meeting. Through video-taped messages sent by several

experts such as Dr. Margaret Chen, Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO), Mr. Anthony Banbury, Head of

the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, and H.E. Dr. Abu Bakarr Fofanah, Minister of Health and

Sanitation of Sierra Leone, shared several important points about the challenge of addressing the Ebola outbreak in Africa,

and consider Ebola as the new Public Health Emergency of International Concern and global threat. In addition, Dr. Poonam

Khetrapa Singh, Regional Director of WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO), and Dr. Shin Young-soo, Regional

Director of WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), discussed the WHO support to the Ebola preparedness and

response in the region. (Source: ASEAN Secretariat News

ASEAN Moves Forward with Public-Private Partnership

MANILA, 17 December 2014 – Through ASEAN Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Networking Forum on 16-17 December in

Manila, ASEAN Connectivity Coordinating Committee (ACCC) discussed PPP as an innovative financing mechanism to realise

the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC).

The Philippines Permanent Mission to ASEAN, with the support from ACCC, the Office of ASEAN Affairs of the Philippines’

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the PPP Center of the Philippines organized the meeting to discuss issues related

to mobilising resources for MPAC through PPP, countries’ experiences on PPP, proposed ASEAN PPP Guidelines/Principles,

and creating a more conducive environment to PPP at the regional, national and local government levels.

Within the forum, developing pipeline of properly prepared projects and enhance the public sector capacity in project

preparation was also emphasised. This could be derived through sharing of best practices, cooperation, collaboration, and

mutually beneficial partnerships. (Source: ASEAN Secretariat News)

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ASEAN Welcomes New Master Trainers and Assessors for

Food & Beverage Service

MANILA, 16 December 2014 – The William Angliss Institute at the Diamond Hotel Philippines, funded by the ASEAN-

Australia Development Cooperation Program (AADCP) Phase II, conducted comprehensive training programmes of Master

Trainers and Master Assessors for Food and Beverages (F&B) Service Division. The programme is expected to create high-

qualified tourism professionals working in the industry delivering high quality services, with regard to support the

implementation of Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRA) on Tourism Professional which allows certified tourism

professionals to work in other ASEAN countries.

From 2012 to 2014, there have been 4 batch of graduates, consist of the first batch for Housekeeping Division arranged in

Bali (November-December 2012); the second batch for Food Production Division organised in Bangkok (September and

2014); the third batch for Front Office Division in Bali (October 2014).

In total, the region is now supported by 83 qualified ASEAN Tourism Master Trainers and 89 ASEAN Tourism Master

Assessors for housekeeping, food production, F&B services and front office, whose roles are crucial in conducting national

trainers and assessors to achieve certification of 6,000 ASEAN tourism professionals by 2015.

Special ASEAN Tourism Professional Monitoring Committee (ATPMC) meeting, as well as regional workshop followed the

graduation ceremony, in purpose to conduct an evaluation. It finalised the a training package for Master Trainer and Master

Assessor that would ensure consistency of the delivery throughout national programme in respective ASEAN Member

States. Next year in March and April, a Pilot Programme for ASEAN National Trainers and Assessors will be conducted in

Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam as a further follow up of this programme. (Source: ASEAN Secretariat News)

board of editors · 2017-08-24 · vision beyond 2015 – its friends stand by in support,...

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