President Jokowi and President Xi Jinping in a bilateral meeting in Chengdu, China, Thursday (27/7) discussed several collaborations including strengthening trade, investment, health cooperation, cooperation in developing the Indonesian Capital City (IKN), to research cooperation and technology.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno LP Marsudi explained the proceedings of the meeting between the two leaders in a virtual press conference on Thursday (27/7) evening. He said the two countries want to strengthen mutually beneficial economic cooperation, including cooperation that always pays attention to environmental impacts and considers the use of local labor.
On this occasion, Jokowi, said Retno, appreciated the completion of the import protocol for a number of products between Indonesia and China.
“In the meeting, the President asked for more market access in China for Indonesian products. The President welcomed the signing of the import protocol, imports in this case are Chinese imports from Indonesia for porang flour and tabasheer powder. “Encouraging renewal of the increase in the import quota for swallow’s nests, as well as the completion of the import protocol for Indonesian seafood products,” said Retno.
According to him, this will further strengthen trade relations between the two countries, considering that China itself is Indonesia’s largest trading partner with trade value last year reaching more than $133 billion. The Indonesia-China trade balance is also increasingly balanced, and has a surplus for this year.
Jokowi, added Retno, claimed that interest from investors from China in Indonesia was quite high. With an investment value of $8.2 billion, China is the second largest investor in Indonesia.
“Even though the numbers are already large, we see that the potential is still large, and there is great potential to be increased even further. Various potential investment sectors include green energy, fiber glass, health and petrochemicals. “The President also invited Chinese investment in IKN development,” he said.
In the health sector, the two state leaders also encouraged strengthening cooperation in making genomic vaccines and biotechnology to face the possibility of a new pandemic in the future.
“Apart from that, the Minister of Health also held meetings with more than 30 business people in the health sector. As well as facilitating match making between businesses in the Indonesia-China Healthcare and bio tech investment forum. “The Minister of Health’s meeting resulted in nine private sector MoUs, including those related to the transfer of vaccine production technology, including halal vaccines, then the production of diagnostic tools and health information system management,” he said.
Regional and Global Issues
In this bilateral meeting, President Jokowi and President Xi Jinping also discussed regional and global issues.
“Mr President emphasized that all countries must maintain regional peace, stability and prosperity. “The President said that rivalries between major powers must be managed so as not to cause conflicts that are detrimental to the region,” said Retno.
Jokowi also appreciated the resumption of communication between the PRC and the United States, and welcomed the completion of guidelines for accelerating negotiations code of conduct in the South China Sea.
“Regarding ASEAN, the President asked for China’s support for the concrete implementation of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, including the participation of SOEs and the PRC private sector in the ASEAN Indo-Pacific Forum which will be held next September in Jakarta. “Mr President also said that the PRC can provide support for the successful implementation of the East Asia Summit which will be held in September,” he explained.
Jokowi also invited the PRC to work together to fight for the interests of developing countries in the field sustainable tropical forestry and climate action.
Increasing Economic Cooperation in the Jokowi Era
Director of China-Indonesia Studies CELIOS Zulfikar Rakhmat said that economic relations between the two countries had indeed improved in the era of Jokowi’s leadership. In terms of investment, even though China is the third largest investor in Indonesia, investors from the bamboo curtain country always play a role in various national strategic projects (PSN), one of which is the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train project.
According to him, there are several factors that cause the government to tend to increase economic and investment cooperation with China. One of them is because Chinese investors tend to be easier to work with than those from other countries.
“If we compare China with other investors, it tends to be easier in quotes. For example, if we compare it with Japanese investors, or investors from the west, what do we look at when we want to invest? Environment, social, and governance (ESG), prioritizing environmental impact, labor force what to do, and so on. Meanwhile, China doesn’t take care of things like that, the important thing is that the money is there, which is important projects road. “For the government itself, which needs everything to be done quickly, this has finally been accepted with open arms,” said Zulfikar.
Zulfikar reminded that with the various problems caused by investment with the PRC, the government must be more careful if it wants to strengthen economic and investment cooperation. Don’t let existing projects be neglected, or even incomplete. (gi/em)
