FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA TEMPO.CO, Fri, August 21, 2020

JAKARTA – Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi on Thursday said that Indonesia and China will strengthen ties in the economic sector, one of them is through the bilateral trade, during the pandemic and after it ends.

This stand was declared on a bilateral conference with China on August 20. “As added information, Indonesia’s export to China increased by 11.74 percent on this year’s first semester from US$12.32 billion in 2019 to US$13.77 billion,” said the Minister through an online conference.

Minister Retno reported that Chinese commodity imports had dropped 11.86 percent, which helped suppress Indonesia’s trade balance deficit by 46.08 percent.

However, as the second-largest investor in Indonesia after Singapore, Retno went on, China’s investment improving by 9 percent in this year’s first half from US$2.2 billion to US$2.4 billion.

Meanwhile, State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir said the meeting also discussed infrastructure logistics that would be able to support the economy. “The SOEs ministry would also like to commence a transformation in logistics to make it more competitive,” said Minister Thohir who referred to mass-scale logistics digital reform.

https://en.tempo.co/read/1377949/indonesia-china-to-strengthen-bilateral-trade

Source: TEMPO.CO, Indonesia Fri, August 21, 2020

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