Monday (5/2), Center for World Trade Studies (CWTS) UGM) received a visit from the National Development Planning Agency of the Republic of Indonesia (Bappenas RI). This visit was carried out in the context of deepening world trade issues related to preparations for the implementation of the High Level Forum on Multi-Stakeholders Partnership activities in 2024. Apart from that, this visit also aims to sharpen the technocratic draft of the 2025 - 2029 Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMN) in the Field of Foreign Policy and International Development Cooperation. Dr. Maharani Hapsari, as Executive Secretary together with Siti Daulah Khoriati, MA and Taufik Adiyanto, S.H., LL.M., who are a team of experts from the CWTS UGM warmly welcomed the Bappenas team.
In the discussion session, Dr. Maharani Hapsari said that the concerns of developing countries is the simplification of the workforce which has occurred due to fluctuations after the pandemic and the need for macro trade. Therefore, to develop policies there needs to be an active role from various parties. Another thing that needs to be considered is corporate intervention in regulations and seeing how a country can take taxes for global redistribution so that it can have an impact on the welfare of the workforce at the micro level.
Steps that can be taken in the short term in making regulations and mapping data are that a framework is needed at the regional level to include regional voices by increasing the capacity of regional governments. Meanwhile, in the long term, upskilling and upgrading of Human Resources (HR) is needed to overcome the problem of low labor competitiveness.
Siti Daulah Khoiriati, MA added that currently the light manufacturing industry has not jumped to a high-value sector, but has returned to being an exporter of raw commodities. Meanwhile, export destination countries want products with high value. The current free trade is also unfair because of reciprocity, high labor wages accompanied by low productivity, and the existence of labor exports. For this reason, it is necessary to design superior commodities that are encouraged by the government. Currently, Indonesia does not have a focus on superior commodities. This also needs to be adjusted to the large number of MSMEs with various sectors that are their focus.
The presentation was continued by Taufik Adiyanto, S.H., LL.M., who said that the issue of national security is still a consideration in world trade. There is a need to promote inclusive globalization from the WTO in order to return to multilateralism. Apart from that, there are several problems that arise, such as Indonesia needing to carry out pre-shipment inspections so that there is an increase in costs, the issue of Domestic Component Level (TKDN) and standardization, the lack of legal certainty in trade and sustainability which was discussed at the G20, the TRIPS Waiver which should not be rigid for developing countries, and the need for fisheries subsidies.
The discussion closed with a response from Bappenas that it was necessary to boost the quality of education to overcome the human resource gap that occurred because there was no alignment of authority between the central government and regional governments. For example, mapping labor resources is the authority of regional governments, whereas the central government only has this data from ministries .Meanwhile, the mapping of labor resources lies with the regional government. The central government only has data from ministries. Therefore, it is necessary to map regional resource centers in any field, which of course needs to be supported through data integration from various ministries in Indonesia.
