REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Indonesia is ready to become the leader in the Marine and Fisheries sector in the coming era of free trade following the implementation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC).

"Indonesia is ready to take the lead," the Director General of Competitive Power Enhancement at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Nilnto Prabowo, said in a press release on Thursday.

He said a number of policies that have been produced by the government would certainly bring about significant changes in the sector.

The changes include the abundant stock of fish in the country's waters and safe materials for processing fish that will certainly boost fishery production.

State Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno has earlier said Indonesia must prevent it being used by ASEAN member countries and so state-owned companies must be more synergic in building the nation.

"We must prevent being used by other ASEAN countries just because we are too slow to make use of our position as the biggest country in ASEAN," she said on Saturday.

She also said ASEAN's economy has been very open while its liberalization process has reached almost all sectors.

The minister also said that of around 250 million of its population or 20 percent are made up of the middle class, which has considerable consumption potential.

One of the challenges faced by Indonesia is inequality in development, Rini pointed out.

"The stress now must be on Indonesia-centered policy, instead of a Java-centered policy," she said.

Although the Java has the largest population in Indonesia, it is also important to develop the other regions of the country, she said.

Rini said there were still 1,293 villages in the country that did not have access to electricity and this should be overcome.

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