THE ROLE OF LAW FOR SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SME's) PROTECTIONS FACES THE CHALLENGES OF REGIONAL COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP (RCEP) IN INDONESIA

Marcellino Gonzales

doi:10.33331/ilj.v14i2.76

Marcellino Gonzales South West University Political Science and Law, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33331/ilj.v14i2.76

Keywords: RCEP, SME's, Indonesia Job Creation Law, Indonesia Omnibus Law

Abstract

During the current uncertain world economy, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was born. RCEP is the largest trade agreement in the world outside the World Trade Organization (WTO) from the perspective of its world coverage for the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), foreign direct investment (FDI) population, and trade. However, this agreement also raises new challenges, especially for each country that has joined the RCEP Agreement, in preparing legal provisions for welcoming this RCEP. The recklessness in preparing legal foundations in trade and investment sectors can raise some new problems. This paper will discuss whether any impacts from the RCEP implementation? And specifically, how Indonesia's legal instrument readiness to protect their national interests, especially for the Small Medium Enterprises, faces the challenges that come up from RCEP? The method used in this paper will be descriptive. To obtain an overview of the situation and circumstances of the RCEP, by presenting the data obtained as it is, and through various analyses to draw several conclusions.From the discussion, we can conclude that RCEP positively impacts developing supply chains that have been disturbed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the China-US decoupling. Secondly, RCEP has an enormous momentum in making a giant leap towards legal transformation in the economic sector, particularly for Indonesia. Thus far, in facing this RCEP challenge, Indonesia already has a new legal instrument enacted on October 5th, 2020. This law is known as the Job Creation Law or the Indonesia Omnibus Law. It has provided a significant shove for changes to the formation of the laws as a whole in the Indonesian economic sector, including the Small Medium Enterprises protection.

Author Biography

Marcellino Gonzales, South West University Political Science and Law, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China.

Marcellino Gonzales S., He is currently a Judge on the Trenggalek District Court, East Java. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia. He had been granted a scholarship of” YES-Program” from the People’s Republic of China. He received his LLM degree from East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL), Shanghai, China, in 2016. He is currently joining the Ph.D. candidate scholarship program of the class of International Law 2019, in Southwest University of Political Science & Law, Chongqing, China.