Govt Disseminates Benefits of IE-CEPA to Makassar’s Stakeholders

Jakarta, infopublik—Trade Ministry’s Directorate General of International Trade Negotiation in partnership with Swiss Cham Indonesia promoted the Indonesia-European Free Trade Association Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (IE-CEPA) to stakeholders in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

The IE-CEPA agreement covers an economic cooperation between Indonesia and four nations under the European Free Trade Association (FTA), namely Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway.

The Ministry expected that business actors and the public understand the benefits of IE-CEPA from the earliest stage. It is also expected that by the time the ratification is completed at the parliament, IE-CEPA will be effective in the early 2020 at the latest. “We hope businesses are gearing up to make the most use of the preferential scheme, including in the goods and services trade, employment, investment, and economic partnership,” said Trade ministry’s bilateral negotiation Director Ni Made Ayu Marthini as stated on a press statement received in Jakarta, Saturday (28/9).

Made further explained that in general, the agreement is formed based on three considerations. First, the EFTA nations have high purchase power which is included as Indonesia’s nontraditional markets. Secondly, the EFTA can become a strategic hub for Indonesia’s indirect exports to EFTA member countries’ cooperation agreement partners worldwide. Currently EFTA have 29 cooperation agreements with 40 countries, including the European union. And thhird, the EFTA agreement is strengthened with technical cooperation in various sectors to increase domestic industries’ competitiveness, including agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.

Meanwhile, in terms of capacity development, Indonesia-EFTA agreed on the implementation of concrete cooperation in the sectors of export promotion, tourism, SMEs, intellectual property Rights, cocoa, palm oil, vocational education, maritime industry, and fisheries. The capacity cooperation will be carried out by involving polytechnics, vocational training centers, and public sector.

In terms of access to goods trade markets, the agreement offer a preferential tariff of 99 percent for Indonesian goods entering the EFTA. The goods include palm oil, fishery products, gold, footwear, coffee, toys, textiles, furniture, electrical equipment, machinery, bicycles, and tire. Meanwhile, the service sectors that benefit from IE-CEPA are professional services, telecommunications, distribution, education, construction, environment, finance, tourism, recreation and culture, and transportation. (Reporter: Isma, Translator: Penni Patmawati Rusman)