VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

President Joko Widodo stated that the implementation of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement requires high political commitment. The signing of the RCEP is only a beginning, while a long and steep road might be waiting ahead. That was stated by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi in a virtual press conference from Bogor Palace, West Java on Sunday (15/11). She conveyed that after the RCEP signing was done by 10 ASEAN member countries along with 5 ASEAN partner countries namely Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, and South Korea. According to Minister Retno Marsudi, the RCEP country signees expressed appreciation for Indonesian leadership during the negotiation process. Minister Retno also remarked that the negotiation showed ASEAN leadership in their relationship with partner countries.

RCEP is Indonesia's initiative when being the leader of ASEAN and was agreed during ASEAN leader meeting in November 2011. The first negotiation began in March 2013 and Indonesia was the RCEP Negotiation Leader. Minister Retno Marsudi added that RCEP is expected to create conducive and competitive conditions for the economy in Indo-Pacific. It also marks the commitment towards open, just, and mutually beneficial multilateral trade principles.

Besides Minister Retno Marsudi, Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said that RCEP had been through a long process namely 31 rounds of plenary negotiation. Fifteen country signees of RCEP cumulatively represented 29.6 percent world population, 30.2 percent global Gross Domestic Product, 27.4 percent of global trade and 29.8 percent global Foreign Direct Investment.

Data of Indonesia's export to 14 RCEP countries for the last five years showed a positive trend namely 7.35 percent while in 2019, total non-oil and gas export to RCEP region represented 56.51 percent of total export of Indonesia to the world namely around US$84.4 billion dollars. Meanwhile from import, RCEP represented 65.79 percent total import of Indonesia from the world namely US$102 billion dollars.

Minister Agus Suparmanto quoted a research from a private company in September 2020 which concluded that after five years of ratification, RCEP is potential to increase Indonesia's export to member countries around 8-11 percent and investment to Indonesia around 18-22 percent.