ASEAN Social Culture Community

ASEAN ~ RI to capitalize on ASEAN connectivity : While Indonesia is struggling to fix its poor infrastructure — roads, airports and seaports — across the country, it will soon get a help from ASEAN.

As leaders of the 10 Southeast Asian countries are poised to adopt a declaration on the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity — which would promote the region’s long-term strategy to improve infrastructure, institutional and people-to-people relations — on Thursday, Indonesian officials and businesspeople are preparing ways to take full advantage of the plan.

By enhancing connectivity, investors would see the regional grouping of 590 million people as one market rather than as separate countries, officials have said. The master plan proposes strategies to boost road, rail, shipping, air and other networks between ASEAN members to reduce economic disparities in Southeast Asia and help ASEAN achieve its goal of becoming an economic community by 2015.

“We will link Indonesia with the whole of ASEAN. For instance, we will connect the planned railway from Kumming in China to Singapore with ours in Sumatra and Java,” Indonesian Ambassador to ASEAN Ngurah Swajaya said Wednesday.

Besides building railways linking to the western part of Indonesia, under the ASEAN Highway program, many roads across the region will also be upgraded and standardized to link with those in other ASEAN countries, Ngurah said.

According to the master plan, 47 seaports will be built across ASEAN by 2015, with 16 in Indonesia.

On the financing side, the ASEAN connectivity projects have given member countries a solid basis from which to mobilize funding sources, via international organizations, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), as well as individual donor countries, all of which have expressed interest to finance projects under the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity.

“Japan, for instance, will provide US$200 billion to finance various projects under the ASEAN connectivity plan,” Ngurah said.

Due to budget constraints, Indonesia has limited ability to keep existing roads and ports in good condition let alone building new ones, drawing complaints from investors on the high investment needed in Indonesia to start businesses. The government, Ngurah said, had also been preparing to connect the archipelago with internet connections or broad band as part of ASEAN ICT connectivity plans before 2015.

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told businesspeople that a better connected ASEAN will benefit both businesses and consumers, urging them to capitalize on the various government policies that encourage business development.

ASEAN secretary-general, Dr Surin Pitsuwan, said businesses which recognize ASEAN’s connectivity potential will be the winners. “Enterprises which bank on ASEAN as a well-connected region will benefit from its role as an integrated business and investment hub.”