Jakarta. Indonesia will soon receive the roadmap that will take it a step closer to gaining a seat at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann will hand over the roadmap to senior minister Airlangga Hartarto in Paris on Thursday local time, according to a ministerial press release.

Indonesia’s application to the OECD is a first from Southeast Asia. If its application gets accepted, Indonesia will be the third Asian country to join the OECD after South Korea and Japan.

The handover will promote Indonesia’s status as an accession candidate, joining  Brazil and Bulgaria, among others.

“To achieve Indonesia’s dream of becoming an advanced economy by 2045, it is about time that our country strengthens its influence as a global policymaker,” the press release reads.

Members of the OECD -- known to be a rich-country club -- make up 80 percent of the global trade and investments. In the press release, Indonesia claims to have an “advantage” over other OECD members with its relatively young population. The median age of the OECD countries’ population is around 40 years, far older than that of Indonesia at 24 years.

Indonesia has been a key partner to the OECD since 2007 and even helped the group launch its Southeast Asia regional program in 2014. Indonesia submitted an application letter to the OECD in July 2023. About seven months later, the OECD agreed to open the discussions for Indonesia’s membership.

The roadmap handover does not mean that Indonesia is already an official member of the OECD. Indonesia will need to prove it has met the group’s standards on open trade and investment, environmental protection, and anti-corruption measures, to name a few. The OECD committees will then conduct technical reviews, evaluating whether Indonesia has aligned with the group's standards and policies.

Airlangga said earlier that Indonesia’s incoming government was ready to implement the roadmap. After hosting the world’s largest single-day election, Indonesia has elected the current defense minister Prabowo Subianto as its next president. 

“Undoubtedly, the imminent launch of Indonesia’s OECD accession roadmap will coexist with our national agenda as we prepare for the incoming government,” Airlangga told ambassadors of OECD member countries in Jakarta in February.

“Our ambition remains to implement Indonesia’s accession roadmap in the next administration,” Airlangga said.

Indonesia’s OECD membership is not free from challenges. Israeli media not long ago claimed that Jakarta was mulling normalizing ties with OECD member Israel. A full membership will require unanimous approval from all members, including Israel, which Jakarta has been highly critical of for its atrocities in Gaza. Foreign Affairs Ministry’s spokesman Lalu Muhammad Iqbal had already shot down the rumors, arguing that Indonesia’s stance was already crystal clear.

“To this day, there are no plans to open diplomatic ties with Israel, especially in the midst of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Indonesia’s stance has not changed and we consistently remain firm in support of Palestine’s independence within the framework of the two-state solution,” Lalu told the press last month.

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