Indonesia aims for 12 new export destinations, from Latin America to the Middle East

Jakarta – Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Susiwijono Moegiarso revealed that his party together with stakeholders is mapping new export destination countries for Indonesia.
This is due to the pessimistic trade growth in Indonesia’s five main trading partners this year, namely China, Japan, Singapore, the United States (US), India. Due to global economic growth and the country is predicted to experience a slowdown and will affect trade in the country.

“Some areas that are our export destinations, we hope will start to recover again, but yesterday we started looking for non-traditional markets, yesterday friends of the national team proposed 12 additional countries,” said Susiwijono in Economic Outlook 2024, Thursday, January 25, 2024.
He continued, although Indonesia’s trade balance had a surplus for 44 consecutive months, or from May 2020 to December 2023, the government would still be vigilant.”Exports depend on demand, demand is in the global market. We also want, apart from the supply side of strengthening the product, the demand side, the destination of the country must be mapped out. So in addition to the countries that have been export destinations, there are non-traditional markets, we are sorting out non-traditional markets,” he said.

Susiwijono also revealed that his party is targeting Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. In addition, a number of trade cooperation will be explored with various international institutions such as The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“This is already the national task force according to Presidential Decree 24/2023, it just so happens that we are coordinated, yesterday all Ministries / Institutions, Kadin, Apindo gathered, we are targeting the middle of next month in February, coincidentally Mr. Menko is the head of the improvement task force,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded a surplus in the goods trade balance throughout 2023 of USD36.93 billion. This amount decreased by 33.46 percent, compared to the surplus of USD17.52 billion in 2022.

The decline in the trade balance surplus throughout 2023 was triggered by a decline in both export and import performance. The total export value from January 2023 to December 2023 amounted to USD258.82 billion, down 11.33 percent yoy.
Meanwhile, the value of imports from January 2023 to December 2023 amounted to USD221.89 billion or decreased by 6.55 percent yoy.(*)