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The UK’s Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP - 

The UK’s Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP visit Indonesia on 22-23 February 2022, to join her counterpart, Trade Minister of the Republic of Indonesia Mohammad Lutfi, for the first ever UK-Indonesia Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) before heading onto Japan and Singapore.

Her visit will cover several priority sectors such as stepping up green trade in areas like renewables, hydrogen and nickel investment. She will also discuss greater collaboration in the digital and financial services sectors.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan will also meet Minister of Investment and Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan to discuss UK partnerships on tidal energy and battery technology, and she will meet the Governor of Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, to discuss collaborating on Jakarta Net Zero.

Minister Trevelyan will promote the UK’s rail expertise as she visits Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), which British firms have helped to design. She will highlight how closer trade ties and UK Export Finance could help Indonesia to work with British firms who are bidding for multi-million pound contracts on Indonesian infrastructure projects, like Jakarta MRT.

Both the UK and Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, will commit to enhancing their trading relationship, to further develop the existing £2.6 billion in bilateral trade.

As Indonesia holds the G20 Presidency this year, the UK’s Trade Minister will also meet with B20 business leaders to discuss partnerships on digital transformation, energy transition and women in business. 

“Bilateral trade between the UK and Indonesia stands at £2.6 billion, and investment into Indonesia from the UK stood at £5.1 billion in 2020, creating 1 million jobs in Indonesia. We have a strong relationship, but with Indonesia going from strength-to-strength, and there is still room for growth. Increasing trade is a win-win, that benefits both nations and with that ambition in mind, we are convinced that the launch of the Joint Economic and Trade Committee with the Indonesian Government will accelerate the steps we can take to increase trade especially in the priority sectors",British Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor Leste Owen Jenkins said. 

The UK and ASEAN are keen to boost trade ties, from a strong base. The UK is attractive to ASEAN as the world’s 5^th largest economy, with strengths in industries essential to the future – such as digital and financial services. Meanwhile ASEAN’s ten member countries have a combined GDP of £2.4 trillion, and will grow rapidly into economic powerhouses of the future. Trade between the UK and ASEAN is already worth over £33.8 billion in 2020 and the UK is already a major development partner for Southeast Asia, investing more than £3.5 billion of total UK Official Development Assistance in ASEAN over the past decade.

On the visit, the UK’s Trade Minister set out the UK’s ambition for a dynamic, impactful and unique relationship with ASEAN on economics, development and trade – reflecting the drive, resilience and ingenuity of our respective business communities and people.

The Secretary of State and ASEAN Secretary General met to discuss opening up markets between UK and ASEAN, across key sectors including sustainable development, digital innovation and financial services.

According to a release received by Voice of Indonesia on Tuesday (22/02/22),The UK as the first major economy to legislate a commitment to net zero by 2050 and is the world leader in tidal energy technology. UK is also the home of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd, the world’s leading facility for demonstrating and testing wave and tidal energy technologies. With the plan from the UK government to invest £20 million per year in Tidal Stream electricity as part of its flagship renewable energy auction scheme, the UK is kickstarting a brand-new chapter for the tidal industry and these technologies can be used to support Indonesia’s effort in achieving its goal of 23% renewable energy mix by 2025. There are already UK companies interested to develop projects in Indonesia.

As Indonesia has the world’s fourth largest number of Internet users of around 185 million, the digital natives that consists of Millennials and Generation Z consumers account for a significant proportion of Indonesia’s population and are increasingly becoming the main drivers of growth for its digital economy, which contributed 4% of GDP in 2020.

As the UK has world-leading capabilities in financial technology, AI, Big Data, health tech, and cyber security are keen to work with Indonesian companies to invest in and partner with UK tech companies or raise capital in the UK. More collaborations can flourish from these opportunities to deepen the UK-Indonesia digital relationship across the public and private sectors, especially with the support from existing initiatives through the Embassy’s Digital Trade Network, Tech Hub and Digital Access Programme//VOI-NK