TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Representatives of the European Parliament (EP) meets with Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution today, May 24, to discuss the economy, trade and investment between the European Union (EU) and Indonesia.
"We had quite a long discussion on the relationship between Indonesia and EU," Darmin said in Jakarta, Wednesday.
Darmin said one of the issues discussed was palm oil, where he explained to the EU that, for Indonesia, environmental issue is cannot simply be associated with just one type of commodity. He said that environmental problems are shaped by many factors, so the government's focus now is to help the EP see this problem from a wider angle.
Darmin said the two sides also discussed trade and investment economic relations agreement, in which both agreed to provide full support to one another.
"That way we can establish better partnerships in the future," he said.
Sajjad H. Karim, a spokesman for the EP's International Trade Commission, said Indonesia is an important country to them and that cooperation between the two has strong foundations.
"I hope this cooperation can be cemented and extended further," he said.
The European Parliament released a report titled 'On Palm Oil and Deforestation of Rainforests'. In the report, Indonesia is accused of causing global deforestation due to the country's increased production and consumption of agricultural commodities, one of them is palm oil, which triggered the rampant opening of oil palm plantations that often resulted in forest fires.
DIKO OKTARA