JAKARTA. The Indonesian government is trying to explore the idea of trade cooperation with a number of countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region, following the global economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agus Suparmanto, Minister of Trade, said that Indonesian business players together with a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean can help each other by establishing trade cooperation. "We must be able to turn the momentum of the crisis due to this pandemic into an opportunity to improve trade performance," said Suparmanto through an official statement.
According to Suparmanto, Latin America and the Caribbean are promising areas for Indonesia. Indonesia's export potential to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2019, according to Suparmanto, reached USD 944.5 billion. However, the realized value was only USD 3.8 billion.
For information, Indonesia's trade balance with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a deficit of USD 1.6 billion in 8M20. In this period, Indonesia's market share to Latin America and the Caribbean was only 0.42%, lower than Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. (KR/AR)