VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOInews, Jakarta: The Indonesian government, in this case the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, continues to oversee several important matters related to international economic cooperation. One of them is Indonesia's accession process to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Indonesia became the first Southeast Asian country to become an OECD accession country, after the approval of Indonesia's Accession Roadmap which was officially handed over at the OECD Ministerial Meeting (PTM) on 2-3 May 2024. Currently, there are 7 OECD accession countries, namely Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Croatia, Peru and Romania.

After reaching the stage of adopting the OECD roadmap, the next step that will be taken by the Government is the self-assessment process, and the preparation of an initial memorandum which is planned to be completed within the next 250 days. For the national coordination process, the President of Indonesia has issued Presidential Decree Number 17 of 2024 on the OECD National Team. The Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs is appointed as the Chairman of the Implementation Team with the Vice Chairmen being the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Finance.

‘The government has taken strategic steps related to OECD accession, to commit to becoming an OECD member within the next three years, including the integration of OECD accession in the RPJPN and RPJMN to the plan to establish a Project Management Office (PMO) to support the OECD National Team,’ said Deputy for Coordination of International Economic Cooperation Edi Prio Pambudi, in a Media Briefing to journalists at the Media Centre of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs Jakarta, Thursday (30/5).

After the OECD PTM, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann visited Indonesia on 28-29 May 2024. During the visit, the OECD Secretary-General met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, 2024-2029 President-Elect Prabowo Subianto, the Indonesian Parliament, the OECD National Team, and relevant stakeholders such as labour organisations, civil society, business representatives, academics, and others.

‘By becoming a member of the OECD, our access to the markets of other OECD member countries will be more open and will encourage investment as well. There is already a national team consisting of various stakeholders, and even later, media friends will also be involved in terms of press freedom. As a big nation, we must be united to achieve this,’ said Deputy Edi.

Furthermore, the OECD will also help with the development of the semiconductor ecosystem. Indonesia is one of the countries that will be reviewed by the U.S. Department of State in collaboration with the OECD. It is expected that from the results of the review, Indonesia can contribute to strengthening the global semiconductor supply chain through the International Technology Security and Innovation (ITSI) Fund mechanism and increase foreign investment into Indonesia in the semiconductor sector. The review process is expected to last for 6-8 months and the OECD Semiconductor Team is planning to come to Indonesia in early-mid 2024 to complete a fact-finding mission for the review of Indonesia's semiconductor industry.

‘Semiconductors are important as we have continued to negotiate since a long time ago, and there is quite fierce competition in the semiconductor world today. Now the United States still holds many standards for it, for example for smartphone production. You can imagine that if we don't manage that, we will be left far behind. Here we have built a semiconductor ecosystem involving ambassadors, entrepreneurs, and others, because this is a broad industry so we have to know where to start,’ Deputy Edi concluded.

Source: Indonesian Coordinating Minister of Economic