Indonesia was not built instantly with its sky scrapers. It was not established abruptly with piles of concretes and bustling cities. This nation was built with hard work and efforts by farmers trying diligently to make sure the village-barns were full.
hat kind of awareness motivates Vice President, JusufKalla, representing the Government of Indonesia, to bring up the topic of rural development in the international domain. This time is through APEC meeting.
Within the theme of Rural Development, the government proposes a concept of product development or product list. For the last couple of years this concept has been fought for to get incentive for minimizing the tariff barrier or non-tariff in the international trade.
Previously, Indonesia includes five kinds of commodities into the concept product development, which are CPO, natural rubber, rattan, paper, and fishery products. The concept has gained supports from countries like Vietnam, Papua Nugini, and Peru.
 “Development product” basically is closely related with products that are resulted from rural areas development. So when we talk about rural, it means about products created from those areas and it needs a free trade system,” said Vice President Kalla, during his attendance in the APEC meeting in Lima, Peru.
According to him, trade system is open for development products and it is highly required to minimize obstacles for the sustainability of global economy, especially food sustainability.
Nevertheless, reaching a great success does not mean we can pass an easy road. Development product concept that was proposed by Indonesia was rejected again by other countries, most of all by representative developed countries.
Developed countries consider that such concept is merely a hidden agenda made by Indonesia in order to pass its CPO commodity and get global trade incentive. Yet, for all these time, CPO is to put the blame for disrupting the natural environment.
ImanPambagyo, Director General of International Trade Corporation, Ministry of Trade, said that numbers of countries are also doubt about such enlisted products which are convinced by some that they would give impacts to rural development and welfare, while the fact it would be effected after a long period of time.
“They often throw conceptual, theoretical questions, and ask for statistical evidences that Indonesia cannot provide. We need a strong analytical back-up,” said Iman to Bisnis, explaining about the process of agreement by the APEC’s Committee Trade and Investment (CTI).
Peru that previously gave its support to the development product concept now is also deserting for they have more interest in the Small and Medium Size Enterprise product concept.
INCISIVE CONTENT
Still with high spirit Indonesia will not give up to resubmit the concept of development product in the upcoming APEC meeting in Vietnam, next year. In the future, the government will make the proposal content more incisive and prepare a more complete strategies, hoping that it will finally get approval.
Indonesian government had four times in a row failed to fight for palm oil products to be included in the environmental goods list (EG List) in the APEC meeting.
First failure happened during the 2012 APEC meeting in Russia. The reason was that CPO had not fulfilled the maximum reduction of the green-house effect requirement. Palm oil was not even among the 54 commodities enlisted in the EG list, and failed to get a maximum 5% import duty facility in 2015.
Indonesia then continued to put its best effort to include the palm oil into the EG list in the 2013 APEC meeting in Bali. Again, it failed due to the reason that concerned with process and time.
As the host of the event, the government surely took that as a good opportunity to submit the proposal and to convince that trade in the Asia Pacific region offers great benefits for all people.
Indonesia has found an alternative way by generating a new platform called development goods list which is equivalent with the 54 EG List. The EG list only covers the criteria of environmental-friendly products, while the new platform offers a new criteria consists of; sustainable development, inclusive growth, poverty reduction, and development in remote areas.
And, the last APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, has truly showed how hard it is, and what a winding road it has been for Indonesia to make palm oil have a place in the environmental goods list.
Source: Bisnis Indonesia (Monday, November 28, 2016, Page. 26)