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European Union: Trade Cooperation Could Benefit Indonesia

European Union (EU) delegation for Indonesia and Brunei, Raffaele Quarto, is sure that trade cooperation will benefit Indonesia. Indonesia and EU have just signed a comprehensive economic partnership agreement. Because of this, Quarto stated that the Indonesian export is predicted to reach US$1 billion in about a year from now on. The trade cooperation will also protect Indonesia’s transaction value to the Europe countries. Quarto added that without the trade cooperation, Indonesia might lose US$2 billion from the trade.

Export is not the only sector that is predicted to earn benefit from the trade cooperation. Quarto revealed that the foreign direct investment will get the benefits from it as well. Thus, EU is asking Indonesia’s government to create an investment protection policy, like Singapore and Vietnam. It is reported that Europe is mostly invested in Singapore and Vietnam, and it is because they have the investment protection policy. If Indonesia has the investment protection policies, Eu will invest in manufacture, automotive, as well as tourism.

It is reported that as of 2017, the total of EU’s investment in South East Asia countries is US$25,44 billion. However, Indonesia only got US$5,53 billion out of the total. Therefore, EU stated that if Indonesia wants to have a bigger amount of investment from EU, the government needs to create the investment protection policy.

Source: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20190724152558-92-415133/delegasi-uni-eropa-sebut-kerja-sama-dagang-bisa-untungkan-ri