Trade Minister Zulhas Proposes Reactivate Bilateral Forum Between Indonesia And Vietnam

Minister of Trade (Mendag) Zulkifli Hasan. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan proposed reactivated the bilateral forum between Indonesia and Vietnam to increase trade between the two countries.

"The proposal was welcomed by Vietnam because the bilateral meetings between the two countries had been stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Zulhas, the Minister of Trade's nickname, regarding a bilateral meeting with Vietnam's Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien, quoted from Antara, Sunday, August 20.

Minister of Trade Zulhas and Nguyen Hong Dien held a bilateral meeting in the 55th Meeting of the Ministers of Economic Affairs of ASEAN and Other Meetings in Semarang, Central Java.

Zulhas also expressed his interest in visiting Vietnam by inviting Indonesian business actors in agriculture, fisheries, electric vehicle industry including rare earth metal processing to explore business cooperation with Vietnamese business actors.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's Minister of Industry, Nguyen Hong Dien, said that Vietnam is ready to cooperate with Indonesia and hopes that the reactivation of bilateral forums can reduce trade barriers.

In addition, Vietnam will bring business actors during the Business Forum on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit (KTT) in September 2023 in Jakarta. Vietnam also expressed interest in meeting with Indonesian exporters for corn and crude palm oil (CPO) commodities.

Responding to this, Zulhas said he was ready to bring together the largest CPO producer in Indonesia.

"We are ready to bring together Vietnamese business actors with Indonesia's top CPO producers," he said.

Indonesia and Vietnam's total trade in January-June 2023 was recorded at 6.22 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, in 2022, the total trade between the two countries reached 13.31 billion US dollars or an increase compared to 2021 which amounted to 11.06 billion US dollars.

In 2022, Indonesia's exports to Vietnam were recorded at 8.49 billion US dollars and Indonesia's imports from Vietnam amounted to 4.82 billion US dollars. Thus, Indonesia's trade balance surplus was 3.67 billion US dollars.