THE ANALYSIS OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER (MIDEC) PROGRAM AS INDONESIA’S OPPORTUNITY TO ENHANCE ITS AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS 2008 – 2012

Abstract

Cooperation becomes the common thing to be practiced by many states in the present times with the purpose to resolve the issues that they face, and get the goals that they desire without doing any conflicts. Indonesia has the economic development as the goal that it wants to achieve as it is attached on the Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional (RPJMN). On the other side, Japan establish the Economic Partnership Agreements in order to construct the closer economic partnership with its EPA partners. Japan and Indonesia then decided to establish an EPA named Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement (JIEPA) in which it encompasses several activities, including the capacity building program on manufacturing industry area named Manufacturing Industrial Development Center (MIDEC) to help Indonesia to increase its industrial competitiveness. This thesis focuses on the implementation of MIDEC-JIEPA initiative on the automotive industry area. The timeline that is set is 2008-2012 as it is the timeline of the implementation of MIDEC-JIEPA initiative. The method that is used in this thesis is qualitative method as the topic that is raised by the researcher is categorized to the non-numerical topic. By using the theory of liberalism, and technical assistance/foreign aid, the researcher found that MIDEC-JIEPA initiative is a form of technical assistance that is given by Japan to Indonesia. For Indonesia, this initiative managed to help increasing Indonesia’s automotive industrial competitiveness in several indicators. Meanwhile, for Japan, the MIDEC-JIEPA initiative may become its opportunity to deepen its relationship with Indonesia, including the economic partnership under the JIEPA framework.