Indonesia Officially Joins OECD Competition Committee.

Jakarta (15/06) – Indonesia has officially joined the membership of the Competition Committee at the Organization for International Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The membership was ratified through Presidential Decree Number 11 of 2023 on Indonesia’s Membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Competition Committee (Keppres) signed by President Jokowi on May 30, 2023. With this membership, Indonesia will develop our competition policies and law enforcement by following the international standards. The Indonesia Competition Commission as the implementer of this decree is required to play an active role in encouraging compliance with these international standards.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international economic organization tasked with shaping policies for the betterment of society. It aims to create policies that promote prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all its members. The OECD currently consists of 38 (thirty-eight) countries. In the Asian region, only Japan, South Korea and Turkey are OECD members. Indonesia is currently not a member of the OECD.

Indonesia’s involvement in the OECD Competition Committee has actually been going on for a long time, since December 15, 2005, with ICC role as an observer in the committee. Since Indonesia was designated as one of the Key Partners (in addition to Brazil, China, India, and South Africa) by the OECD in 2007, Indonesia’s relationship with the OECD has been strengthened through a five-year joint work program in various fields. Currently, the fourth program is being implemented to guide the cooperation from 2022 to 2025. Competition policy falls under the area of cooperation for business climate and digitalization. The cooperation includes capacity building on how pro-competition policies can maximize the benefits of the digital economy; coordination assistance between governments and competition authorities in overseeing and enforcing competition policies and laws in digital markets; capacity building in designing economic recovery packages and their potential barriers to competition; and raising policymakers’ awareness of sustainability and competition issues.

The existence of this Presidential Decree has an important meaning for ICC because it provides an opportunity to obtain the highest membership status for authorities that are not from OECD member countries, namely associate. For this reason, ICC is required to oversee the implementation of competition policy and law enforcement in Indonesia in line with the Recommendation of the Council of the OECD. The recommendations cover a variety of issues, including transparency and fairness of procedures in law enforcement, policy assessment, competition neutrality, eradication of bid rigging in procurement, merger analysis, effective action against cartels, as well as international cooperation in the investigation and hearing of competition cases. This membership also provides the greatest access for the ICC to utilize data and or information in the OECD as well as various studies and activities that support the competition supervision process. This will encourage competition law enforcement and competition policy in Indonesia to have high goals, practices, and standards in providing the greatest benefit to society.