AFTA Concerns Highlighted at 2015 P3I Jakarta Mid Term Assembly

P3I Jakarta held its mid term regional assembly (Mukerda) at the end of January to discuss about the direction of the industry given the newly created Creative Economy Agency with former ad man Triawan Munaf as its head. The existence of this agency is giving the creative professionals a significant new energy and hope that there will be a greater focus and attention by the government to realize the full potential the industry.

Triawan Munaf, speaking at the event, pointed out that the agency is facing significant challenges in creating and promoting its programs to be adopted by not just the industry but also to be accepted and able to work with the government ministries given the ministries’ own agenda and the fact that the agency is still brand new. The creative economy exists in all sectors of the government and it is a big task to coordinate all of them.

For the advertising industry, Triawan hopes that the local agencies can grow and perform just as well as the foreign owned ones without having to impose unnecessary protectionist policies and be able to attract larger clients to deliver more organic growth.

Creative economy has a significant potential to become a large component of the country’s gross domestic product value and become an ambassador of the country’s culture the way it has for countries like the United States, South Korea, and the UK. The country’s renewable resources through creativity and innovation can be just as great in playing that same role.

Many the points highlighted and passed on by Triawan at the event were already talked about in his interview with AdDiction but a large focus of the discussion at this event were about issues that may arise with the upcoming Asean Free Trade Area agreement coming into effect such as talent, employment, ownership, government contracts, and how regional advertising will be dealt with.

Photos from the event are available from the gallery featured above.