Increasingly Intimate, Indonesia-China Agree To Increase Economic Cooperation 3-fold To 100 Million US Dollars

President Joko Widodo (left) when meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping some time ago (Photo: Special)

JAKARTA - The government through the Ministry of Trade confirmed that it had reached the latest economic agreement to increase the scale of cooperation to three times bigger than before.

The Minister of Trade (Minister of Trade) Muhammad Lutfi said that so far the value of economic cooperation that has been established is US $ 31 billion.

"With the new agreement to be 100 billion US dollars by 2024," he said in China during a virtual press conference, Friday, April 2.

The Trade Minister added that with these adjustments, the two countries in the East Asia region agreed to raise the level of cooperation from the Bilateral Economic and Trade Cooperation scheme in 2011 to the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).

"This TIFA will be a higher level, and we agree to deepen the trade activities of the two countries through the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement," he said.

According to the Trade Minister, the renewal of the synergy also brings an opportunity to improve the trade balance between the two countries.

Furthermore, he conveyed other good news related to the trade activity of swallow's nest from Indonesia, which continues to be of interest to entrepreneurs in China.

"At least five companies will import swallow's nest from Indonesia with an estimated value of more than 1.13 billion US dollars," he said.

In addition, there is also a trade agreement for the furniture industry sector worth 200 million US dollars, as well as investments from 150 companies in West Kalimantan with a record number of workers reaching 3,000 people.

"In total it could reach 1.38 billion US dollars or the equivalent of Rp 20 trillion," he added.

On the same occasion, Minister of BUMN Erick Thohir revealed that his party is carrying out the mission of developing the electric vehicle (EV) industry in the country on this visit.

"CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology) remains committed to investing US $ 5 billion, and what I want to ensure is that the sustainability of this partnership is indeed good and can be accelerated," he said.

Erick said he was happy to receive appreciation from the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises of China, which is said to have made a number of advances in the management of state-owned corporations in Indonesia.

"They have also realized that there have been changes over the past year at the Ministry of BUMN. They call it a comprehensive reform, where state-owned companies are now implementing good corporate governance towards transparency and professionalism openly, "he explained.

In this economic mission, Minister of Trade M. Lutfi and Minister of BUMN Erick Thohir were accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs Reto Marsudi.