In Front of Jokowi, Chinese PM Shows Off Trade Volume with ASEAN Reaches IDR 14.84 Quadrillion

JAKARTA - Chinese Prime Minister (PM) Li Qiang showed off his country's trade volume with ASEAN countries which reached 970 billion, equivalent to IDR 14,841 trillion or IDR 14.84 quadrillion (assuming an exchange rate of IDR 15,300 per US dollar) in 2022.

This was conveyed by Li Qiang at the plenary meeting of the 26th ASEAN-Chian Summit. This meeting was chaired by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and attended by all leaders of other ASEAN member countries.

Li Qiang said China and ASEAN have a large economic capacity. He also said ASEAN and China had also opened trade markets to each other.

“China and ASEAN's cooperation with each other has an important opportunity. We had a captive market that opened up to each other last year. Last year, our two-way trading volume reached more than 970 billion US dollars. And that is more than double the volume a decade ago," he said at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), Senayan, Wednesday, September 6.

On this occasion, Li Qiang also expressed the promise of Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said, Xi Jinping had committed to buy agricultural products from ASEAN countries with a value of up to 150 billion US dollars or the equivalent of IDR 2,295 trillion.

Xi Jinping's promise was made in 2021, when commemorating the China-ASEAN economic dialogue. At that time, Xi Jinping said that for 5 years starting from 2021, China would import agricultural products from ASEAN worth 150 billion US dollars.

"Now, to date, these products worth more than 55 billion US dollars have been imported faster than expected," said Li Qiang.