Indonesia dalam Bingkai Integrasi Ekonomi ASEAN

An open economy is a natural given that no country could produce a product by itself. All countries need to cooperate in producing a product. Open economy starts from trade cooperation to investment cooperation before entering financial cooperation. Regarding trade, the ideal cooperation applies non-discriminative trade principle such as the WTO. However, it needs economic convergence within members of which practically, the world economy does not convergent. Regional economic cooperation happens to be an alternative as naturally stronger trade cooperation exist within countries with closer geographic proximity. Besides the advanced economic integration of the EU which achieved the ultimate aim of a single currency, in Southeast Asia, the ASEAN Economic Community indicates that it has potential to complete real sector integration towards monetary one. This paper argues that ASEAN is possible to succeed its economic community purpose utilizing its soft & open regionalism principle. This principle is compatible with the ASEAN plus framework of which Indonesia will gain much benefit from it