REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Secretary General of Fishery and Maritime Ministry or KKP, Sjarief Widjaja, said that his ministry has planned to establish the ASEAN Economic Committee (MEA) Center to prepare for the ASEAN Free Trade 2015.

Sjarief said here on Thursday that the MEA Center will provide assistance to the public in an effort to increase their readiness to face the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), especially in the border areas that are vulnerable to the impact of the ASEAN free market.

The assistance or mentoring can be in the form of technical assistance to improve the quality and quantity of products, pricing information, as well as standardization of product information, which had been harmonized at the ASEAN level for export purposes.

In addition, the MEA Center will also function to ease the access of financing, monitoring, and implementation of Indonesian National Standard (SNI), in a long-term basis, and the certification process.

According to him, the MEA Center is very important. Moreover, the challenges Indonesia is facing in MEA 2015 includes the lack of understanding about the MEA itself.

In addition, the Fishery and Maritime Ministry will conduct a workshop to prepare fisheries and maritime sector for AEC 2015, and to draft a road map of AEC using the information and data that have been collected, Sjarief explained.

The ASEAN free trade area will begin on December 31, 2015.

The ASEAN groups include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

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