TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Ministry of Trade, Agus Suparmanto, called for stakeholders to make use of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or IA-CEPA which has been made official on Sunday, July 5.

The IA-CEPA was initially established on November 2, 2010, by both country’s government leaders with the first and second rounds of trade taking place in 2012 and 2013 but was halted for three years. The trade deal annuls import duty for Indonesian products to enter Australia.

In 2019, the Indonesia - Australia trade saw a USD3.2 billion deficit from the two country’s total trade value of USD7.8 billion. Indonesia’s export to its neighboring country was recorded to be USD2.3 billion with USD5.58 billion imports. This itself presented Indonesia with USD3.2 billion in deficit.

“Indonesia’s top ten import commodities from Australia mostly consist of raw materials and support for the industry such as wheat, coal, iron ore, aluminum, aluminum sheets, raw sugar, and milk and cream,” said Agus Suparmanto on Sunday’s press release.

Meanwhile, the service trade according to Australia’s statistics saw Indonesia’s exports on service generated AUD 4.4 billion with AUD 1.7 billion imports for Australia, which makes Indonesia at AUD2.7 billion surplus.

Most of Indonesia’s surplus in that aspect comes from services in the tourism and transportation sector while Indonesia continued to import services in academics from Australia.

Read also: Indonesia, Australia Reach Agreement on IA-CEPA

CAESAR AKBAR