ASEAN aims to Develops an Indicator on Business Perception in Competition.

Competition authorities and regulators were gathered in Bali to discuss ways to establish an indicator on business awareness on competition across the region. The indicator will be named the ASEAN Competition Business Perception Index (ACBPI). The meeting was co-hosted by KPPU and German International Cooperation on 19-20 July 2017 at the Ramada Bintang Bali, and attended by almost all ASEAN member states (except Thailand). The meeting itself was led by Mr. Aung Min Thyke of the Ministry of Commerce Myanmar as the on-going Chairman of ASEAN Experts Group on Competition (AEGC), and assisted by the ASEAN Secretariat, Ms. Yap Peng Lai.

The ACBPI knowns as an output to one of the objectives under ASEAN Competition Action Plan 2025 (ACAP), with a shared objective of establishing a competition-aware region for the creation of competition and dynamic ASEAN by 2025. The indicator will aimed at covering several issues like economic benefit of a competitive economy, comprehensiveness of legislation, effectiveness of enforcement, dan level of public support.

This meeting is a first meeting to brainstorm different models of business indicators on competition across ASEAN. The meeting found that some countries has developed their own methodology and conducted survey on their business perspective on competition. These countries are like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Philippines. Indonesia is the only country who develops and uses two models of indicator on competition, namely the sectoral competition index (which was officially launched in 2016) and the public awareness survey (which is similar to those adapted by four other countries). This first meeting has set common objective and proposed methodology for further development. It is expected that the ACBPI will be finalized by 2018 and the first survey to be conducted at the following year.

The ACBPI believes will provide a reliable tool of advocacy to the national government in ASEAN, and will be able to improve foreign trust on competition policy and law in the region. Indonesia, specifically KPPU, is proud to take lead on the development and will found ways in harmonizing the existing models of other countries, and provide a reliable methodology to capture the existing challenges of ASEAN.