Jakarta, 21 Oktober 2015. President Joko Widodo will visit the US on 24 -26th October 2015. Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ) calls President Joko Widodo not to use his visit to discuss the involvement of Indonesia into the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic cooperation agreement.
TPP is a mega trading block which encourages free trade cooperation and liberalization in various economic sectors, representing 40% the world economic power. On 5th October 2015, TPP which is led by the US has reached the deal with the 12 countries. They are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, USA, South Korea, and Vietnam.
Based on previous experiences, the implementation of free trade agreement puts Indonesia only as a supplier of raw materials and market for imported goods and services from other countries.
If Indonesia joins TPP, there will be not a lot of opportunities for Indonesia to improve its trading performance, especially in the global economic situation today.
This fact is supported by trading record between Indonesia and TPP member states, which shows that 80% of them has been steadily tend to be negative. The trade balance of Indonesia with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam are deficit to Indonesia. The trend of Indonesian trade with some of TPP countries during 2010 – 2014 showed negative tendency, as with the US -0.11%, Brunei -9.42%, Chile -6.86%, and Japan 2.57%.
Furthermore, TPP has also established a higher and tight legal obligation standard and required the state members to adjust their national legislation with its standard accordingly. This is just like we import all US regulations to Indonesia. Unfortunately, TPP sector also liberate the government procurement sector.
The economic performance of President Joko Widodo’s “Working Cabinet” is still poor, it shall not be made even worse by an economic policy which will hurt the national economy. Indonesia that is ‘aggressive’ in ratifying free trade agreements, needs to strengthen the fundamental of the domestic economy.
