MARKET DEVELOPMENT
RI, India Urged to Hold More Talks, Meetings to Revive Sluggish Trade
RI, India Urged to Hold More Talks, Meetings to Revive Sluggish Trade
04/10/2014 (Jakarta Post) - India and Indonesia need to further promote their bilateral relations to help revive their declining trade activities.
Indian Ambassador to Indonesia Gurjit Singh said India and Indonesia needed to cooperate in wider economic areas to enable businesspeople to benefit from the expanding business potential in the two counties.
Indonesia was one of India’s most potent economic partners by being the largest exporter of palm oil and coal to India during the tenure of President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono and former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.
However, bilateral trade between the two countries has begun to decline lately due to the global economic slowdown.
According to data from Indonesia’s Trade Ministry, Indonesia’s exports of non-oil and gas commodities to India totaled US$5.68 billion from January to June this year, a 16.09 percent decline from $6.76 billion in the same period last year.
Similar data also shows that Indonesia’s imports of non-oil and gas commodities from India fell by 7.99 percent to $1.94 billion in the first half of the year, down from $2.11 billion in the same period last year.
“Both countries have a very large number of young people, so why don’t we continue our economic partnership together. We need to ensure that this relationship is not only G2G [government to government], but also P2P [people to people] and B2B [business to business],” Singh said Friday at a seminar organized by the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta.
Deputy Foreign Minister Dino Patti Djalal also attended the seminar.
Besides the similarity in demographics, Singh said India and Indonesia should stand more closely in several strategic areas, such as in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on climate change, adding that both countries, as emerging markets, needed to look to their common economic challenges.
Singh said the economic partnership between India and Indonesia should be taken to a new level, arguing that investment in the downstream palm oil industry would be beneficial for both countries.
Indonesia’s non-oil and gas exports to India fell 16% to $5.68 billion in H1 this year
Imports from India also declined by 7.99% to $1.94 billion during the same period
According to Singh, more routine discussions between business players from the two countries should be conducted to enhance the economic relationship.
“Only a few Indonesian businesspeople are interested in India and we don’t often talk to each other. So, we want there to be more meetings and forums between CEOs on both sides,” he said.
Also on Friday, Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, deputy chairwoman of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), said the commitment to boost investment through governmental cooperation should be followed up with collaborative measures by business groups and associations from both countries.
“We would prefer to see collaborations between business groups and associations to explore the areas that we can address together, as opposed to talks only being conducted between individual companies,” she said.
Shinta added that incentives were needed from both governments to attract businesspeople to invest in each other’s countries, as both India and Indonesia had large populations. She cited several sectors besides palm oil and coal that could be enhanced for investment, such as the automotive industry, information technology, the creative economy and alternative energy.
Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of household care firm PT Megasari Makmur, Naveen Gupta, said the acquisition of his company by Indian personal-care products manufacturer Godrej Consumer Ltd. in 2010 showed that both countries offered opportunities in the consumer sector. “India should learn a lot from Indonesia regarding retail sales because Indonesia has several well-organized retail companies that contribute close to 30 percent of the country’s overall retail sales,” he said. (gda)
Indian Ambassador to Indonesia Gurjit Singh said India and Indonesia needed to cooperate in wider economic areas to enable businesspeople to benefit from the expanding business potential in the two counties.
Indonesia was one of India’s most potent economic partners by being the largest exporter of palm oil and coal to India during the tenure of President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono and former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.
However, bilateral trade between the two countries has begun to decline lately due to the global economic slowdown.
According to data from Indonesia’s Trade Ministry, Indonesia’s exports of non-oil and gas commodities to India totaled US$5.68 billion from January to June this year, a 16.09 percent decline from $6.76 billion in the same period last year.
Similar data also shows that Indonesia’s imports of non-oil and gas commodities from India fell by 7.99 percent to $1.94 billion in the first half of the year, down from $2.11 billion in the same period last year.
“Both countries have a very large number of young people, so why don’t we continue our economic partnership together. We need to ensure that this relationship is not only G2G [government to government], but also P2P [people to people] and B2B [business to business],” Singh said Friday at a seminar organized by the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta.
Deputy Foreign Minister Dino Patti Djalal also attended the seminar.
Besides the similarity in demographics, Singh said India and Indonesia should stand more closely in several strategic areas, such as in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on climate change, adding that both countries, as emerging markets, needed to look to their common economic challenges.
Singh said the economic partnership between India and Indonesia should be taken to a new level, arguing that investment in the downstream palm oil industry would be beneficial for both countries.
Indonesia’s non-oil and gas exports to India fell 16% to $5.68 billion in H1 this year
Imports from India also declined by 7.99% to $1.94 billion during the same period
According to Singh, more routine discussions between business players from the two countries should be conducted to enhance the economic relationship.
“Only a few Indonesian businesspeople are interested in India and we don’t often talk to each other. So, we want there to be more meetings and forums between CEOs on both sides,” he said.
Also on Friday, Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, deputy chairwoman of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), said the commitment to boost investment through governmental cooperation should be followed up with collaborative measures by business groups and associations from both countries.
“We would prefer to see collaborations between business groups and associations to explore the areas that we can address together, as opposed to talks only being conducted between individual companies,” she said.
Shinta added that incentives were needed from both governments to attract businesspeople to invest in each other’s countries, as both India and Indonesia had large populations. She cited several sectors besides palm oil and coal that could be enhanced for investment, such as the automotive industry, information technology, the creative economy and alternative energy.
Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of household care firm PT Megasari Makmur, Naveen Gupta, said the acquisition of his company by Indian personal-care products manufacturer Godrej Consumer Ltd. in 2010 showed that both countries offered opportunities in the consumer sector. “India should learn a lot from Indonesia regarding retail sales because Indonesia has several well-organized retail companies that contribute close to 30 percent of the country’s overall retail sales,” he said. (gda)