Trade Liberalization in Construction Services Sector: The Implementation of The ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) Agreement on Construction (Engineering & Architectural) Services in Indonesia

Deskripsi

Hundreds of Indonesian engineers/architects are currently practicing in the ASEAN region. Therefore, the professional mobility for engineers and architects across the ASEAN region is a common thing and it has been occurring since a long time ago. However, the recently established ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) on Engineering/Architectural Service under the mode 4 trade in service liberalization towards the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015 that aims to promote best practices, knowledge sharing, and to facilitate the free flow of professional labours mobility faced many difficulties in the policy implementation level. The dissertation focuses to measure and assess the implementation of the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) agreement for regulated professions in construction (Engineering and Architectural) service scheme in Indonesia. The aims and objectives of this research are fulfilled through the extensive study of the documentary analysis (meeting records, documentations, and scholarly article) and the online survey that was carried out to discover the perspectives and experiences of the Indonesian ACPE/AA as well as to explore the ways to improve the implementation of the ASEAN MRA in the future. This research produced several key findings: the online survey that involved 87 participants confirmed the general lack of interest and willingness from Indonesian ACPEs/AAs to practice overseas under the ASEAN MRA scheme. This condition is compounded by the relatively high experience needed in the MRA requirement so the ASEAN market access under the ASEAN MRA is limited to the engineers/architects in a certain level. Moreover, the small benefits that offered by the ASEAN MRA compared to other regulations/legal schemes have become the main causes of the slow progress of the professional mobility across the ASEAN region even after 11 years since the agreement was signed. The main conclusion drawn from this research is the target group of the policy implementation and the current implementation approaches are not very effective to attract more professional mobility of engineers and architects in the ASEAN region. In the end, this research offered some policy recommendations that included the regulatory revisions in order to increase the main and additional benefits of utilizing the Mutual Recognition Arrangement agreement in the ASEAN.