Jakarta. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) hopes Indonesia will not rush to secure a full membership into the rich country club. 

Indonesia officially became a candidate member to the OECD earlier this month. 

As the accession process began, Indonesia now has to make reforms across various sectors --trade, investment, anti-corruption measures to name a few-- to prove Jakarta is good enough to be a full-fledged OECD member. Indonesia has set a goal to complete the entire accession process within 3 years from now or by 2027.

Although the OECD promises to do the best it can to help Indonesia achieve that 3-year target, the group’s visiting secretary-general Mathias Cormann believes it would be better for Jakarta to focus on getting the reforms right to meet the organization’s standards. 

“We will do our best to support Indonesia going through this process as quickly as possible. We also want to ensure that we take the time necessary to get the reforms right,” Cormann told reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday. 

“But in the end, the most important thing for us is to ensure that we can achieve continuous economic and social reforms in a way that is supported by the public of Indonesia, and deliver genuine benefits to the people,” Cormann said. 

He added: “We are most focused on the content and the substance of the work. But it’s very good to know that the Indonesian government is so keen on moving quickly, and we will support Indonesia to the best of our ability.”

Cormann met with the incumbent President Joko “Jokowi'' Widodo and his successor Prabowo Subianto on Tuesday -- both meetings taking place separately. Jokowi said at the time that Indonesia’s OECD candidacy had earned the backing of the group’s members like Australia, the Netherlands, and Japan in the form of financing and capacity building. 

“Indonesia will soon make a self-assessment memorandum. These efforts represent Indonesia’s firm commitment, and it shows how we have taken a strategic step to strengthen international cooperation and improve the country’s investment climate,” Jokowi said. 

The OECD makes up 80 percent of the global trade and investment. The reforms that come with the accession process are part of Indonesia’s quest to become among the world’s top economies by its centennial in 2045. 

As part of the accession process, Indonesia will undergo technical reviews which will cover almost every area of public policy. Once the reviews and other discussions are complete, Indonesia must submit a final statement, in which it vows to accept OECD’s regulations and all substantive legal instruments. The OECD Council --the group’s decision-making body which includes ambassadors from member countries-- will vote on Indonesia’s membership. Indonesia needs everyone in the council to give their green light before it can officially become a member. 

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