BSN strives for Indonesian CPO Products to be Internationally Accepted

Jakarta, InfoPublik – The National Standardization Agency (BSN) mandated to represent Indonesia in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) keep continuing its endeavor to make Indonesia’s CPO products internationally accepted.

Since 2018, Indonesia, through BSN in collaboration with relevant Ministries/Institutions, has been fighting for CPO products against the European Union policies at the WTO TBT forum.

"We think that the European Union has discriminated against CPO products from outside the European Union with other vegetable oil products originating from the European Union as raw material for biofuels. We will continue to address our concerns and objections to the policy and push the European Union to comply with the provisions of the WTO TBT, so that Indonesian CPO products can penetrate the European Union market," said BSN Head Bambang Prasetya when opening the Workshop on the WTO TBT utilization Agreement in Penetrating the Global Trade Market for Industries at the KADIN Tower, Thursday (8/8).

The TBT agreement regulates every WTO member to fulfill the principles of non-discrimination, equivalence, harmonization with international standards, transparency, and mutual recognition, among others by implementing Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) or Multilateral Arrangement (MLA). As a fulfillment of the principle of transparency, every WTO member is obliged to establish a Notification Body (NB) and Enquiry Point (EP) which assume roles in handling the submission of technical regulations draft to the WTO TBT secretariat and answer all inquiries from both WTO members and the public on the standards, technical regulations, and conformity assessment procedures.

"BSN has been mandated to become the EP and NB for the implementation of WTO TBT Agreement in Indonesia. Business actors must make great use of this agreement to penetrate WTO members export market," Bambang said, expressing his expectation.

The goal to fulfill the state’s obligation to fulfillthe requirements of the agreement becomes very important in increasing competitiveness and expanding access to global markets. The WTO TBT Agreement provides an opportunity for WTO members to trade fairly and transparently. The requirements include the principle of non-discrimination and transparency towards the application of standards and conformity assessment.

In adition, active participation in bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements discussion is needed to facilitate Indonesia’s stakeholders in achieving national interest goals as well as to accommodate national interests.

For example, Indonesia through BSN/KAN has cooperated with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in facilitating exporters to receive halal certificates. "Now our export of halal products to the United Arab Emirates is smooth, because now they have received halal certificates from KAN accredited certification bodies," Bambang explained.

Bambang also expected that Indonesian business actors can be more proactive in providing information related to challenges encountered in conducting international trade in order that BSN can find the solutions to address those challenges through the WTO TBT secretariat.

"Every WTO member has the right to provide responses, clarifications and objections to the regulations imposed by other WTO members. Compliance with international agreements will reduce concern and avoid dispute in international trade which will harm the country," said Bambang.

In his opinion, Indonesia’s active participation both in regulating and responding to other members’ draft regulation may still be improved. Through this forum, it is expected that the synergy between BSN as NB and EP TBT-WTO with business actors in the utilization of technical regulation notification access could be strengthened. The event was attended by 150 Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) business actors. (Reporter: G. Suranto, Translator: Wilda Stiana)