Indonesia Ready To Face AEC: Minister

Ambon, Maluku, Oct 16 (Antara) - Chief Economic Minister Chaerul Tanjung said that Indonesia is now ready to face the AEC because not all sectors will automatically be opened for free trade and service. "The AEC does not mean that all sectors are opened as wide as possible. Therefore, Indonesia is now 95 percent ready to face the ASEAN free trade," the minister said here on Wednesday. After all, the free trade that will take place in 2015 has occurred in Indonesia. He noted that Indonesia has basically 95 percent applied free trade. "This condition will be similar to the AEC conditions, meaning that we are now ready to face it," remarked the minister. However, the minister suggested that the central and regional governments should prepare themselves to face the global competition. "The important thing now is that regional governments and the people should prepare themselves and reinforce their products with mainstay goods," Chaerul Tanjung stated. In the meantime, some six hundred batik painters from Wukirsari Imogiri Bantul, Yogyakarta, are ready to face the competition in the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 as they believe that their traditional products have unique characteristics. "We are not worried about the free-market competition as our traditional batik-painted products are high-quality products that are difficult to copy," a batik painter from Wukirsari Imogiri Bantul, Agus Basuki said on Saturday. He added that Wukirsari Imogiri Bantul was the batik center of Yogyakarta. Here, he stated, the ability to paint batik was a talent that painters inherited from generation to generation, which kept the traditional heritage well-preserved. "Many foreign buyers from Japan, the United States and Africa visit the batik crafters directly, which is why we are not worried about the free-market competition," Basuki remarked. According to the painter, the highest demand for painted batik in the international market came from Japan---as many as 100 pieces a month. Similarly, the monthly demand for painted batik from the United States, several African countries and the Netherlands is about 50 pieces each. Moreover, the business of painted batik mainly catered to demands from the middle to high class societies as they are priced at a range of Rp300 to Rp10 million, or US$24.5 to US$819, per piece, depending on the motifs. Another batik crafter from Mojokerto in East Java, Bu Dar, reiterated that their business would not be influenced much by the AEC 2015. "The AEC is not a big problem as we have marketed most of our products overseas since 2000," she said, adding that the AEC would, instead, benefit the batik crafters because it gave them the opportunity to expand their business easily.