REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government has encouraged the domestic construction sector to expand its business throughout the world through various cooperation schemes.

"We encourage and will assist the construction sector to expand its business abroad, particularly to Myanmar, Timor Leste, Algeria, and some Middle East countries," said Head of Construction Counseling Office Hediyanto W Husaini in a press statement made available to Antara here on Saturday.

According to Hediyanto, the government had prepared the management, empowerment and monitoring of the construction sector in facing global competition.

Hediyanto added that the government and private sector had been organizing large training programs to increase the competency of human resources in the construction industries.

Regarding the cooperation schemes, Indonesia has improved labor networking among ASEAN member countries, one of which is Indonesia-Malaysia cooperation which was signed in Kuala Lumpur on March 31, 2014 and calls for abiding by joint construction standards and developing construction labor training programs.

Previously, Deputy Minister of Public Works Hermanto Dardak said all stake holders must cooperate to increase the quality of domestic construction human resources in participating in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015.

"The representatives of some ministries or institutions can hold effective communication and coordination to push the quality of construction laborers, so we can compete with other countries in the single market era," Hermanto noted.

The improvement in the quality of labor, Hermanto added, should cover technical capacities, management and human resources development.

Hermanto noted after the regulation of the AEC, that Indonesia must be ready for the loss of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, open access to free markets, and the free flow of labor across borders.

"Here we can see that the average growth of laborers is not compatible with the average growth of the value of construction," he said.

In 2006-2013, the average growth of those employed as laborers in Indonesia was only 6 percent, while the average growth of the construction value in the same period was 21 percent.

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