President Jokowi Calls for Increased Export Volume of Indonesian Products

By Office of Assistant to Deputy Cabinet Secretary for State Documents & Translation     Date 20 Oktober 2021
Category: News
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President Joko Widodo delivers his opening remarks at the 2021 Apkasi Autonomy Expo from the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java province, Wednesday (20/10). (Source: Presidential Secretariat YouTube)

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, on Wednesday (20/10), officially opened the 2021 Autonomy Expo of Indonesian Regency Governments Association (Apkasi) from the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java province.

“I welcome the organizing of the 2021 Autonomy Expo organized by Apkasi. This serves as an opportunity to get to know each other, to cooperate with each other, to strengthen trade cooperation between regions, and at the same time, to strengthen our exports, including the expansion of new export markets,” the President said.

On the occasion, President Jokowi ordered the ranks of Apkasi to take full advantage of the export market potential. He reckoned that the potential is still wide open as the economy began to recover in Indonesia’s trading partner countries. For instance, China recorded economic growth of 7.9 percent; the United States recorded 12.2 percent; Japan recorded 7.6 percent; and India recorded 20.1 percent.

“We have to take full advantage of this opportunity, to push our commodities, our products into the countries I mentioned earlier,” he added.

Indonesia’s export growth can be seen from the national export value which reached US$142 billion in the January-August period this year.

“This means that our exports grew very well, 37.7 percent year-on-year (yoy). Almost all countries today need our commodities, so there shouldn’t be any region that hinders, complicates the licensing process, discourages our exports from developing properly,” the President said.

President Jokowi also underscored that regional government officials should encourage the creation of a business climate that can support increased exports of Indonesian products.

“We must continue to increase our export volume, facilitate business players to aggressively take advantage of existing export opportunities. We must start to push. Any product is encouraged to enter the competition to take advantage of existing export opportunities, thus making our products known and competitive in the global market,” he said.

Through the Autonomy Expo, the President expressed hope that each region will not only showcase its products and feature tourist attractions, but will also showcase the conducive investment climate, legal certainty, and ease of licensing using online single submission (OSS).

“This certainty is really needed by the business world. We also hope that the organizing of this expo can boost investment in the regions and accelerate the creation of new job opportunities for our community and stimulate the regional economy,” he said.

Meanwhile, General Chairperson of the Apkasi Sutan Riska Tuanku Kerajaan in his report said that the 2021 Apkasi Autonomy Expo will introduce the potential products from various regencies across Indonesia.

The products displayed in the expo, among others, are animal feed processing, capture fish production and aquaculture, micro-hydropower plants, investment opportunities in the development of agro-tourism attractions and the construction of hotels and resorts, as well as downstream palm oil and rubber industries.

The regional products, he said, will be traded more widely through a startup application that facilitates the online marketing process. The use of the application aims to increase sales while reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“This Expo is expected to be the forerunner of a new trading habit during the pandemic and in the future. That’s why the enthusiasm of the participants is expected to create a new passion for regional and national economic markets even though the pandemic is still hitting,” Riska said.

For the record, the Expo will be held from 20 to 22 October 2021 at Hall A Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) Senayan, Jakarta. The activities offered include exhibitions and business forums which will bring together regional governments and business players or potential investors.  (FID/UN) (FI/MUR)

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