It has been known that the ASEAN Economic Community will come into effect at the end of this year precisely on 31 December 2015. Along with the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN countries including Indonesia are required to prepare their country. Each country has the different challenges and constraints in facing the ASEAN Economic Community considering each country has different levels of development progress.
With regard to the readiness of the ASEAN countries, Secretary General of ASEAN at the 25th ASEAN Summit in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, 12th November 2014 reported that the updated implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community has reached 82.1% of 229 targeted action plans. The rest of the targeted action plans will be achieved in 2015. In order to face the ASEAN Economic Community the ASEAN countries should create a deeply integrated and highly cohesive ASEAN economy that would support sustained high economic growth and resilience even in the face of global economic shocks and volatilities.
According to some analysts, the Indonesia’s stakeholders actually haven’t been ready yet in facing the ASEAN Economic Community at the end of this year. However, Indonesia should be optimistic about the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community. In this regard, Indonesia should domestically prepare its rules and regulations in accordance with the ASEAN Economic Community. Indonesia, as a leading member of ASEAN, committed to implement the ASEAN decision. Indonesia has to ensure that its rules and regulations are being improved to seize some opportunities of the activation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. In response to AEC, Indonesia should improve the legal framework and infrastructure. Indonesia is definitely not 100 percent ready for the integration, but Indonesia has done the best to ensure that the Indonesian people would gain equal benefits from greater opportunities.