CELEBRATING INDONESIA'S 72ND INDEPENDENCE DAY
As the most populous country in ASEAN, with more than 250 million population, Indonesia is ranked as the largest democratic country in the region. It rapidly matures in the democratic system, which is marked by the era of reforms through the People Power
Exactly on this day, 72 years ago, the Indonesian people, represented by their national leaders, Ir. Soekarno and Drs. Mohammad Hatta, proclaimed the country’s independence. After suffering from a long struggle and sacrificing many lives in most parts of Indonesia, the Indonesian people could finally enjoy its own fate and govern itself. Since the declaration of independence, the country has been expanding and growing fast, in terms of political, economic, educational and social welfare, as well as infrastructure development. This year, the 72nd anniversary celebration of Indonesian ndependence emphasizes the spirit of “Indonesia Kerja Bersama” (Indonesia Working Together), which is not only a tagline, but also a movement that means working together and helping one another in realizing the national vision to be a more prosperous Indonesia.
poliTical developmenT and good goveRnance
As the most populous country in ASEAN, with more than 250 million population, Indonesia is ranked as the largest democratic country in the region. It rapidly matures in the democratic system, which is marked by the era of reforms through the People Power in 1998. Since then, free and fair general elections have been held four times — in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
In 2014, Indonesia conducted the largest general election in Southeast Asia in a peaceful manner. More than 189 million people casted their votes in the presidential election, which elected
president Joko widodo as the seventh Indonesian president and Jusuf Kalla and the 12th vice president.
The Government under President Joko Widodo has underlined nine Priority Agenda, known as “nawa cita.” These are:
• To bring the presence of state back to the people in order to fulfill its obligation to protect all people and to provide security to all citizens;
• To enhance the presence of the government through good governance that is clean, effective, democratic and reliable;
• To build Indonesia from its periphery and strengthen the rural areas within the framework of a unitary state of Indonesia;
• To reject a weak state by reforming the system and law enforcement that is corruption-free, dignified and reliable; • To improve the quality of living of the Indonesian people; • To improve people’s productivity and competitiveness in the international market;
• To achieve economic independence by moving the strategic sectors to domestic economy;
• To revolutionize the nation’s character through a policy of restructuring the national education curriculum with advanced civic education;
• To strengthen diversity and social restoration of Indonesia.
The main focus of indonesia’s developmenT
Under President Joko Widodo, Indonesia is envisioned as a global maritime fulcrum (poros maritime dunia), of which maritime connectivity becomes an important agenda. This vision focuses, among others, on improving Indonesia’s maritime resources development, strengthening Indonesia’s maritime security, and enhancing interisland connectivity by developing marine infrastructure, as well as maritime or border diplomacy.
The physical connectivity will enhance people-to-people contact, which eventually will invite more trade and investment to the country. In order to build such connectivity, the Indonesian Government is undertaking efforts to upgrade port infrastructure within the Indonesian archipelago. For this purpose, the Indonesian government has set up a three-pronged archipelago belt project, namely the Northern, Middle and Southern Archipelago Belts.
Global maritime fulcrum doctrine is aimed at bringing Indonesia’s strategic role in the region that is located between the two continents, Asia and Australia; and the two oceans, Indian and Pacific. For this grand design, several plans for “nautical highway system” and “ring shipping route” in maritime matters, which will become parts of the master plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) is being developed by the Indonesian Government.
economic developmenT
After the financial and economic crisis, which also hit Indonesia’s economy since mid-1997, the Indonesian government has been doing its efforts by processing debt restructuring and the companies under custody were sold for privatization. Since 1999, the economy has been recovered and growth has accelerated to over four to six percent in recent years.
At the moment, in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is considered as the largest economy, and as one of the fastest-emerging market economies of the world. Indonesia is a member of G-20, an international grouping economy of the strongest economic capabilities of countries around the world. Indonesia is also classified as a newly industrialized country. In 2016, it is the 16th largest economy by nominal GDP ($940.953) and the seventh largest in term of GDP PPP ($3.028 trillion). Sector in services are the largest GDP (46 percent), which followed by industry (40.3 percent) and agriculture (13.7 percent).
In 2016, inflation rate in Indonesia was recorded as 3.02 percent, while its GDP growth was five percent and unemployment has been reduced to 11.3 percent. The main industry is petroleum and natural gas, textile, apparel, footware, mining, chemical fertilizer, electronics, machinery, telecommunication, plywood, rubber, food, and tourism. Export values reached $144.4 billion. Meanwhile the import reached $135.6 billion. This includes machinery and equipment, chemical, fuel and food stuff. The five biggest export partners are Japan, USA, China, Singapore and India. While the five biggest import partners are China, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea.
Investment sector is projected to be one of the biggest contributors of national revenue in 2017. It is expected to grow between 5.1 to 5.4 percent. Therefore, it needs $6.2 billion of investment to reach that goal. In 2016, Indonesia saved foreign direct investment stock to $292.8 billion, while foreign reserves reached $121.8 billion and the gross external debt is $316.1 billion. The outlook of credit rating performance of Indonesia considers stable. It gets BB+ from Standard & Poor’s, Baa3 from Moody’s, and BBB- and positive from Fitch.
In tourism sector, revenue from tourism is one of the biggest contributors of the country’s PDB (10 percent) in 2016. To boost the national revenue in this sector, Indonesian government emphasizes that infrastructure should be soon established and built to improve tourism objects throughout Indonesia. Therefore, tourism becomes one of the big four of National Development Priorities in 2017. State budget for financing tourism projects will be double to five times bigger than that of last year during the next two years. Tourism sector is projected to be the core of economy of Indonesia and as the biggest revenue to reach $24 billion exceeding those of oil and gas, coal and palm oil products. To attain that goal, Indonesia incorporated among related institutions in Indonesia should be organized and synchronized. The implementation of the 10 programs of tourism have to be done soon, they are, among others, digital tourism, homestay “tourism village,” air accessibility, branding Wonderful Indonesia, top 10 original, and top three main destinations.
In order to reach the target of expected inbound tourists in 2017 and in the next following years, Indonesian government has endorsed new regulations on visa for shortterm visit. Last year the government issued a Presidential Regulation No.21/2016 in which tourists from 169 countries can enter and stay in Indonesia without visa for a period of 30 days. In this new regulation, the yacht and cruise ship now can also pick up and disembark passengers at five seaports: Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar and Bali.
Roles of indonesia wiThin Regional and inTeRnaTional foRa
At the regional and international context, Indonesia takes active participation by asserting its continued role and leadership. As a founding member of ASEAN, Indonesia puts ASEAN as one of the main pillars in its foreign policy. Indonesian diplomacy in ASEAN consistently supports the continuation of unity and centrality values of each member state of ASEAN. During the chairmanship of the Philippines in ASEAN, since the beginning of 2017 Indonesia has been taking active participation in all ASEAN’s meetings, including its Ministerial Meetings and the 30th Summit of ASEAN 2017.
In international fora, Indonesia is always committed to aim its important contribution for the world peace and stability. Many endeavors have been done in different levels of international affairs. One of them is in the area of international peace keeping force. Indonesia is one of the biggest supporters of Peace Keeping Operation with 2.731 personnel of troops in nine United Nations Missions. Likewise, the establishment of the Contact Group on Peace and Reconciliation which was agreed by the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was based on Indonesia’s initiative. Through various world forum such as UN, OIC, ASEAN, G20 and Bali Democracy Forum (BDF), Indonesia keeps underlining the importance of dialog, cooperation, and minimalizing confrontation and politicalizing in solving world problems, which include combatting terrorism and trans-national crimes, mutual respect in diversity, promoting women’s role in decision making mechanism, and policy coherent as well as fair global economic structure.
Bilateral relations with the PhiliPPines
Indonesia and the Philippines have established diplomatic relations since Nov. 24, 1949 and much has been accomplished between the two countries, both on bilateral basis and in the framework of regional and multilateral forum, especially in ASEAN since Indonesia and the Philippines are the founding members of ASEAN. The relationship between both countries has never been better. They have been supporting each other in many kinds of cooperation.
Frequent high-level visits mark the close relationships and strong ties between Indonesia and the Philippines. On Sept. 8-9, 2016, the newly elected President of the Republic of the Philippines, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, undertook a State Visit to Indonesia as an introductory visit to one of the ASEAN neighboring countries. The visit then reciprocated by the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, to Manila on April 28-30, 2017, while attending the 31st ASEAN Summit. The visit has been marked by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Agricultural Cooperation and the launching of maiden voyage of Roll on Roll of Route of ferry shipping from Davao/General Santos to Bitung, North Sulawesi. The visits were emphasizing the strongest relationships between the two countries and nations.
Indonesia and the Philippines are always committed to bring durable peace in the areas of conflict. On the issue of the Southern Philippines, since 1993 under the framework of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Indonesia has been actively participated in facilitating the peace process between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that led to the signing of the Final Peace Agreement in 1996. Likewise, under the track of GPHMoro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace process, Indonesia continues to send observer teams as parts of International Monitoring Team (IMT) in Mindanao since 2012 until now.
On the issue of Martial Law status in Mindanao and as continuous cooperation of establishing combatting terrorism and transnational crimes, Indonesia had initiated to hold a Trilateral Ministerial Meeting in Manila among the three neighboring countries: Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia which was held on June 22, 2017. The meeting was aimed at finding efforts and solution to keep the region peaceful. These three neighboring countries that share the same borders agreed to forge a collective effort against terrorism and extremism within the region.
To increase cooperation in the field of defense and security, the two countries carry out cooperation through different levels of activities such as education and training. The two countries also develop cooperation by doing a joint-operation on the maritime border to safeguard the waters area. The Philippines purchased Warships and carrier airplanes from PT. Dirgantara Indonesia.
Due to the fact of the increased numbers of migrant workers both from Indonesia and the Philippines abroad, both countries strengthen cooperation and mutual support for promoting and protecting the rights of migrants and migrant workers. In 2003, the two countries signed a MoU on Migrant Workers, which then followed by a Joint Declaration on the Protection of Migrants and Migrant Workers signed in February this year.
In terms of economic cooperation, as countries characterized by similar geographical condition, Indonesia and the Philippines will continue to have mutual and reciprocal trade relations. The total trade values continue to grow from time to time. The value of this year’s first quarter reached $1.55 million or an increase of 60.1 percent compared to the same period last year. At the level of ASEAN, Indonesia is the second largest country of origin of importing goods in the Philippines. While the Philippines is the fifth largest country of origin of Indonesia’s importing goods. Nevertheless, trade relations between the two countries will always be optimistic in the future. This is also supported by a new project of opening connectivity between the two countries by launching a maiden voyage of Roll on Roll of Route of ferry shipping from Davao/General Santos Cities to Bitung, North Sulawesi, which was officiated by the two Presidents, Indonesia and the Philippines, April this year.
In education cooperation, three MoU on basic education, higher education, and vocational education have been signed in 2011, 2014 and 2015. Three programs of cooperation have been implemented on basic education area in which the MAIN AIM (Mutual Assistance on Innovations and New Technologies on Agriculture, ICT and Madrasah Education) becomes the main programs. The Indonesian government facilitates the Muslim Filipino to study in Indonesia’s tertiary schools as well as universities for getting academic degrees. They are now studying in Aceh, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Malang and Surakarta.
At the level of higher education, though both countries have not had a Joint Working Group (JWG), however, many universities from Indonesia increase cooperation with universities/colleges in the Philippines in recent years. The programs include student or teacher exchange, seminar, and training. Programs for joint or double degree and student exchange are still being discussed between Educational institutions from both countries. Indonesian government offers KNB Scholarship for Filipino (scholarship for Developing Countries). It promotes a deeper cultural understanding, cooperation, and to strengthen relationships among developing countries. This scholarship provides opportunity to potential students in the Philippines to develop their knowledge and competencies. It also invites the students to experience life in the culturally most diverse nation while studying and earning a master degree.
Another scholarship program offered by Indonesian Ministry of Education is Darmasiswa. This scholarship is provided for the citizen of friendly countries (included Philippine) to study Bahasa Indonesia, arts and culture. Participants can choose one of selected universities located in different cities in Indonesia. The main purpose of the DARMASISWA program is to promote and increase the interest in language and culture of Indonesia. It has also been designed to provide stronger cultural links and understanding among participating countries. This year, eight students were selected from the Philippines to study in Indonesia with the programs of Bahasa Indonesia, fine arts and batik handicraft.