VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

various kinds of vegetables oil - shiv impex

Indonesia is committed to fulfilling the 17 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs 2030 and has succeeded in achieving significant progress. In this regard, Indonesia rejects discriminatory treatment related to the issue of sustainability of Indonesian palm oil products, amid Indonesia's efforts to raise stricter standards. This was affirmed by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Mahendra Siregar at an online seminar with the theme "Sustainable Vegetable Oil: Opportunities for Increased Two-Way Trade" on January 14th 2021. As quoted on the kemlu.go.id page (15/1), in the event, Deputy Minister Mahendra Siregar said, Indonesia emphasized that efforts to achieve SDGs targets require close collaboration with some countries. In this regard, the Government of Indonesia is ready to share dialogue with all partners, both at the regional and global levels.

This webinar activity was organized by the Indonesian Embassy in Stockholm in a bid to encourage discussion on the topic of sustainable vegetable oil and the background of the agreement between the member states of the European Union (EU) and ASEAN to improve relations from a Dialogue Partnership to a Strategic Partnership, as well as the formation of a Joint Working Group on Vegetable Oil at the 23rd EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting to be held on 1 December 2020.

In his opening, Indonesian Ambassador to Stockholm, Kamapradipta Isnomo called for all stakeholders in Indonesia and the people of the European Union and ASEAN to take advantage of the momentum in early 2021 by welcoming the launch of the Joint Working Group towards increasing the two-way trade in vegetable oil. He said that the commitment of the two parties to form a Joint Working Group indicates a common vision to solve environmental challenges and issues in the vegetable oil sector from a more objective and non-discriminatory perspective.

The seminar was attended by two expert panelists in the field of sustainability and vegetable oil based in Sweden, namely Francis X. Johnson, Ph.D., Senior Researcher from the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Fumi Harahap, Ph.D, Postdoctoral Researcher from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. In the presentation and discussion, the points explained were the stages of economic transition to bio-economics, the market share of oil plant use, the potential for energy produced from agricultural crop residues, and opportunities for bio-refinery development to capture the full potential of vegetable resources. Representing the Swedish Government and acting as event moderator was Paul Westin from the Swedish Energy Agency.

Palm oil and its derivatives are one of Indonesia's leading commodities exported to Sweden. Over the last 3 years, the import value of Swedish palm oil from Indonesia has continued to increase, from US$ 14.5 million in 2017 to US $ 32.3 million in 2019. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and efforts to accelerate national economic recovery, trade vegetable oils, especially palm oil exports abroad, are becoming increasingly important to the Government and the people of Indonesia.