Wahyu Dwi Anggoro
IDXChannel - Indonesian Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Pahala Nugraha Mansury engaged in a dialogue with representatives of the Council of the European Union's Working Party on Asia-Oceania (COASI) in Jakarta this week.
The Vice Minister emphasised Indonesia's strategic role and the potential for collaboration with the EU in navigating economic fragmentation, slowbalisation, and uncertainty.
"Indonesia is not a proxy of various powers in the region and is open to fostering partnership based on fair, equal, and mutually beneficial principles," he stated in a media release, Tuesday (23/4/2024).
According to him, Indonesia and the EU have strong modalities as partners due to their shared principles on multilateralism and commitment to climate crisis mitigation. To achieve the Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, he added, Indonesia continues to pursue structural reforms through economic transformation focusing on strengthening domestic resilience, diversifying partnerships and forms of cooperation, increasing value-added production through industrial downstreaming, and becoming more integrated to global supply chain.
Since the implementation of Indonesia – EU Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) in 2014, the EU has become Indonesia's 5th largest trading partner, while Indonesia remains the 31st for the EU. The EU's investment in Indonesia, although showing a positive trend, is only about 4.6% of the total foreign direct investment in Indonesia despite both side are having competitive market strengths, Indonesia's population of 277 million and the EU's population of over 448 million.
