TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Ministry of Trade assured that the trade sector will continue to grow by maintaining Indonesia's domestic and foreign markets buoyant amid the potential for an economic recession predicted to occur in 2023.

"The Ministry of Trade has and continues to ensure that the national economy continues to grow amid a dynamic global and regional economic situation, including several areas that are predicted to experience a decline," said the Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan when contacted by ANTARA in Jakarta on Monday, January 9, 2023.

According to the Minister of Trade, several steps would be intensified by the ministry. The first is to ensure that the domestic market continues to grow positively by ensuring several matters.

One of them is ensuring the availability of materials needed by the community, especially staple foods and important necessities.

"This will be pursued together with all stakeholders so that it can be maintained," said Minister Zulkifli Hasan.

Afterwards, ensuring the affordability of basic and essential goods for the people of Indonesia, where collaboration and coordination between ministries and agencies, as well as the business world throughout the supply chain, is something that must be done.

Furthermore, ensuring the use of digitalization in various distribution channels also needs to be optimized so that affordability and availability can be maintained.

The second step taken by the Minister of Trade is to make the most of dynamic foreign markets through several main activities that will provide opportunities for national business actors to continue to be able to carry out quality exports.

This can be done by initiating, concluding, and implementing various trade agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA), Free Trade Agreements (FTA), and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPA) with various regions or Indonesian trading partners, especially non-traditional trading partner countries or emerging economies.

Another step taken is attempting to produce trade negotiations with countries in South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, North Africa and North America, which hoped to be completed in 2023.

"Agreements that have already been ratified, such as RCEP, Indonesia Korea CEPA, will be implemented early this year around the end of January or early February, so it is hoped that this will become an opportunity to increase exports," said Zulkifli.

The Ministry of Trade is also attempting to complete the ratification of the CEPA agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which could boost export to the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and even Latin America.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Trade would hold trade missions to various non-traditional regions, the prioritized countries are Africa (Nigeria and Morocco), the Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE), South Asia (India and Bangladesh), and Latin America (Chile, Peru, and Brazil).

"This could encourage business-to-business connectivity between domestic business actors and international business actors," said Zulkifli.

Another activity regularly conducted by the Ministry of Trade is dealing with various obstacles experienced by exporters or domestic business actors in foreign markets either through bilateral mechanisms between the government (Government to Government), or even through international forums such as the World Trade Agency (WTO), ASEAN, and others.

In addition, the Ministry of Trade has also optimized various security measures for the domestic industrial sector through the implementation of antidumping and other safeguards policy.

"It is hoped that with these comprehensive steps, the national economy, especially the trade sector, can continue to grow sustainably even though there are economic dynamics at the global level," concluded Zulkifli.

ANTARA l IMAJI LASAHIDO

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