The Indonesian government is refocusing on making the five premium commodities back to be included in the Environmental Good List / EG List) during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2016 in Lima, Peru.

Those five commodities consist of crude palm oil / CPO, natural rubber, natural rattan, paper, and fishery products.

Minister of Industry, AirlanggaHartarto said that currently the Government has been lobbying several parties to enlist the five potential commodities in a joint statement by the leader of 21 economic states member of APEC. Such commodities are considered to have a significant role in the economic activities particularly in the real investment sector and has the ability to improve the welfare of the overall Indonesian people. “If such commodities were well accepted then the trade and investment that are associated with will surely improve including the growth in the industrial sector,” said Airlangga through his written statement, last week.

“In the last couple of years Indonesian government has been working hard to enlist those products in a joint statement made by APEC leaders, and crude palm oil is one of among the Indonesia’s well-known premium export commodities. We will remain try our best to realize this plan especially during this time meeting,” said AirlanggaHartanto.

Indonesia has tried several times to achieve its goal to include number of prospective commodities especially CPO into the APEC agreement. The last attempt was done during the APEC meeting in Manila, Philippines, in 2015 led by the Trade Minister, Mr. Thomas Lembong, and at the APEC Summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, Russia, which had reached an agreement to include 54 products into the EG list. By entering the EG list, exporters would be able to gain 5 % Import Duty from the APEC’s states members.

Mr. Airlangga also stated that Indonesia is still continuing to negotiate bilaterally with China and Ausralia to push their export of biodiesel energy resources. This step has been taken to even out the balance of trade between the two countries since for all these time Indonesia has been experiencing a deficit of balance of trade with them.

Indonesia’s Vice President, JusufKalla had also an important statement during the APEC meeting in 2016, the government suggested that developing the trade commodities; palm oil, rattan, coffee, and rubber shall be treated equally with other kinds of product.

They should also be exempted from the import duty. Kalla said,” We cannot undervalue our farmers’ products because that would just create another new poverty in this country.”

During the meeting, Kalla said that Indonesia keeps reminding other countries for not to continue doing a negative campaign especially regarding paper and palm oil production.

“We will approach other countries to stop such action. And if they cannot stop it, then we would do the same thing as in return.”

The APEC Meeting was held in Peru, 17-21 November 2016, and Indonesia so far has joined in nine ministry-level bilateral meetings plus one bilateral meeting involving Vice President JusufKalla and President of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang. The nine meetings were bilateral meetings with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Japan, Peru, and Chile. Among the countries; Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan offered an increase of number of investment, while Peru and Chile offer non-tropical agriculture products trading which they believe it would not create a competition or effect the Indonesia’s domestic products.

 

Food Sustainability

Some of the APEC’s members also begin to concern about other issue, particularly the food sustainability in each country. “Regarding the matter of food sustainability, we just cannot deny that we are all in this meeting have the same concern about food shortages,” said Minister of Trade, EnggartiastoLukita during the APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, on Saturday (20/11).

Each of the APEC members proposes a program concerning food sustainability which is also closely related to the development of rural areas. “We bring up this program so that we would not have to be highly dependent on International supplies for if every country relying itself to other countries, world famine would surely take place,” said Lukita.

According to Enggar, as it is reported in Antara news, Indonesia has developed a program with its main goal is to achieve a self-supporting in food that has been set by President JokoWidodo and the Ministry of Agriculture. “We are now working very hard on this food sustainability program,” said Enggartiasto.

 

Source: Investor Daily (Monday, November 21, 2016, Page 7)