Our paper describes how the U.S.–China trade tensions affect Indonesia's trade and investment. The direct impacts come through increasing uncertainties, lower world demand, and diverted East Asian regional production networks. The indirect impacts can be observed in trade and investment reallocations. Amidst the tension, in 2018, the Indonesian economy grew 5.17 percent with reserves of 6.7 months of imports. Its trade with the United States and China grew by 7.5 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. Although creating opportunities for Indonesia in the short run, trade tensions will repress the world economy. Indonesia understands that trade openness will improve productivity and we believe it will continue its reforms to be more open and integrated into the world economy.

This paper uses a product-level gravity approach to estimate the effect of ASEAN's product-specific rules of origin (ROOs) on regional trade, using original data on rules applicable at the six-digit level of the harmonized system. We find that the average tariff ad valorem equivalent (AVE) of ASEAN's ROOs is 3.40 percent across all instruments and sectors. The trade-weighted average is 2.09 percent. This moderate estimate is in line with the existing literature. We also find fairly high AVEs for some sectors, however, including leather, textile and apparel, footwear, and automobiles. Additionally, we find that some rules appear more restrictive than others; in this regard, the textile rule seems to stand out as a relatively more trade-inhibiting rule than others.

Over recent decades ASEAN has advanced a policy of regional integration, starting with the ASEAN Free Trade Area, following on with the ASEAN+1 free trade agreements with its six main trading partners, and now with ASEAN+6. To further advance ASEAN's regional integration in the East Asian context, it should continue to focus on further liberalization of trade in goods, investment, and services that can facilitate more trade and investment. East Asian integration is designed not to be just an “extensive regional trade agreement,” but is more a “responsive vehicle” that consists of trade and investment commitments combined with facilitation. To keep regional integration viable, it should adopt an open regionalism.

Findings show that the incidence of non-tariff measures (NTMs) in ASEAN is moderate in comparison with other regions of the world. The econometrically estimated ad valorem equivalents also seem comparable with other countries. The challenge is to design NTMs so as to maximize their effectiveness in responding to consumer concerns while minimizing the induced economic inefficiency and the interference from self-interested lobbies. This paper proposes that the way forward is not to follow traditional “notify-negotiate-eliminate” approaches but instead to bring the issue to the country level and imbed them in regulatory-reform agendas in the efforts to improve trade and investment climate.