The Ministry Of Trade Expresses National And Global Trade Challenges In 2024

Director General of Consumer Protection and Orderly Commerce at the Ministry of Trade, Moga Simatupang. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) identified several major challenges that will be faced by the global and national trade sectors in 2024.

Director General of Consumer Protection and Orderly Commerce at the Ministry of Trade, Moga Simatupang, said the first challenge was the shift in world demographics.

He said developed countries have a demographic trend that tends to age, while developing countries enter the demographic bonus phase.

The second challenge is distribution logistics disruption and supply chain.

"This is related to the arrangement of the distribution network of basic commodities, improvement of trade logistics between islands, and utilization of domestic supply chains," Moga said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, May 20.

The next challenge is the development of global geopoliticals, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine since February 2022, the collaboration between the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework vs. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government to improve connectivity and cooperation between China and other countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

In addition, there are also Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and the Red Sea conflict, which disrupt global logistics, international trade, and the world economy.

However, Moga said that the government is optimistic that Indonesia's economic growth will continue to grow in 2024.

Indonesia's economy in the first quarter of 2024 showed moderate growth of 5 percent, lower than the same period in 2023, which reached 5.03 percent.

However, projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that Indonesia's economic growth rate in 2024 and 2025 will still be in the range of 5 percent.

The trade sector, with good export performance of goods and services as well as stable household consumption, is said to be a major contributor to economic growth.

This is reinforced by a trade balance surplus that reached 7.31 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2024, continuing the surplus trend since May 2020.

This achievement made Indonesia successfully record a trade surplus for 47 consecutive months.

On the other hand, Indonesia's inflation trend shows improvement in the first quarter of 2024. Cumulative national inflation was recorded at 0.52 percent, with food and beverage and tobacco groups, which are usually the biggest contributors to inflation, experiencing a significant decline.

Even in April 2024, national inflation on an annual basis (yoy) was below the government's target of 4 percent, namely 3.05 percent yoy.