Ministry Of Trade Says RI Can Defeat Vietnam With IEU-CEPA Implementation

Head of the Trade Policy Agency of the Ministry of Trade Kasan. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Head of the Trade Policy Agency of the Ministry of Trade Kasan said Indonesia was able to surpass Vietnam when the Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA) negotiations had been completed.

"Our market access to the European Union, which is currently completed and implemented, will benefit much greater than Vietnam," said Kasan in Gambir Trade Talk #13 in Jakarta, Wednesday.

Kasan said Indonesia was far behind Vietnam regarding the trade agreement with the European Union.

Therefore, Vietnam can easily export goods and services to the European market.

In 2022, Indonesia's trade volume to the European Union is only 46 billion US dollars, while Vietnam is more than 94 billion US dollars after the CEPA implementation.

However, Kasan is optimistic that Indonesia will be able to catch up with the completion of the IEU-CEPA this year.

Furthermore, Kasan assessed, the IEU-CEPA agreement is very important to open access to Indonesian exports. Because, if you can enter the European Union market, it will be easier to expand to other market share.

"We are Indonesia with a bigger economy than Vietnam, we have considered, calculated that our market access to the European Union, we calculate that we will get benefits that are much greater than what Vietnam gets," said Kasan.

IEU-CEPA negotiations have now entered the 17th round. In these negotiations, 12 issues were discussed, namely trade in goods, trade in services, investment, continuous food system cooperation, trade and sustainable development, provisions for the origin of goods, energy and raw materials, technical barriers to trade, subsidies, intellectual property, institutional provisions, and anti-fraud clauses.

In this 17th round, it has been technically agreed on three chapters, namely cooperation in a sustainable food system, trade barriers and constitutional provisions.

This negotiations will continue and are expected to be completed by the end of 2024.