Meeting With EU Ambassador, Coordinating Minister Airlangga Affirms Indonesia's Commitment To Accelerate Indonesia-EU CEPA

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto. (Photo: Doc. Coordinating Ministry for the Economy)

JAKARTA - The European Union (EU) is one of Indonesia's strategic partners in the economic sector. The value of bilateral trade in the January to August 2021 period reached 18.1 billion US dollars, an increase of 8.68 percent compared to the same period last year of 16.7 billion US dollars. The value of EU investment in 2020 will reach 2.1 billion US dollars.

To enhance cooperation between the two countries, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto received a visit from the EU Ambassador to Indonesia Vincent Piket, Wednesday, December 22 yesterday. The meeting discussed several issues of bilateral economic cooperation between Indonesia and the EU.

Regarding the development of the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) negotiations, Coordinating Minister Airlangga underlined Indonesia's commitment to accelerating the completion of the negotiations. In this case, both Indonesia and the EU, must bring mutual interests that are mutually beneficial. Currently, the negotiations have entered the 11th round which was held virtually in November.

"Negotiators from both parties are expected to be more creative in finding solutions to negotiating issues that are still pending issues so that the settlement of negotiations can be accelerated," said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.

During the meeting, the two agreed to conduct technical discussions in an effort to speed up negotiations. Then, the meeting also discussed the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the European Union's Green Deal strategy policy and its derivative regulations which will later regulate the import of products that meet sustainable criteria, namely the proposed Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products policy.

During the meeting, the Government of Indonesia expressed its commitment to support sustainable trade and stated that environmental sector issues should not be misused to hinder trade flows.

Furthermore, in a discussion related to the issue of the telecommunications sector, Coordinating Minister Airlangga invited EU companies to invest in Indonesia's digital technology development sector.

At the meeting, Coordinating Minister Airlangga was accompanied by the Deputy for International Economic Cooperation Coordination Edi P. Pambudi and the Assistant Deputy for European, African and Middle Eastern Economic Cooperation Fajar Wirawan Harijo. The Ambassador Piket was accompanied by the Deputy Head of Trade and Economic Section Martin Mitov.