Fuska Sani, Yogyakarta – Indonesia should rethink its involvement in a free trade pact among Southeast Asian Nations, a Yogyakarta academic has warned.

Pratikno, the rector of Gadjah Mada University, on Friday said that a looming Association of Southeast Asian Nations trade agreement would have a major impact on the flow of commodities and services into the country.

The 10-member Asean and six partners – Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – commenced negotiations during an Asean summit in Phnom Penh earlier this week. "With that free trade zone, Indonesia will enter a danger zone. There will be a flood of foreign workers and also foreign goods," Pratikno said.

He said that partner countries had been pressuring Asean to open its doors, not only to the trade in goods but also services.

"This causes great concern for me because India is very globally competitive. The IT competition in the United States has also been pushed by India's IT development. Indonesia, on the other hand, so far is merely a market," he said. Pratikno added that the Indian labor pool is better skilled and globally competitive.

Pratikno said that the government should reconsider its involvement, and measure whether its human resources can compete in technical, communications and managerial areas if the free trade agreement materializes.

"Indonesia is experiencing very good economic growth and is currently the 25th largest economy in the world. It is expected to be one of the top 10 in 2030 but Indonesian human resources will be threatened by the flood of foreign human resources," he said.

He added that despite its rich economic assets, Indonesia was still dominated by foreign powers and enterprises, and their leadership and management were dominated by skilled foreigners.

"Long before the Asean Economic Community 2015 even starts, the ranks of executives in large corporations in Indonesia would be flooded with manpower from the Philippines and Thailand which have quite strong competitiveness," he said.