Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia and the European Union (EU) have completed the 15thround of the Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic PartnershipAgreement (IEU-CEPA) negotiations.
Head of the Indonesiannegotiation team - Trade Ministry's Bilateral Negotiation Director Johni Martha said that the two negotiation teams made efforts infinding solutions for issues in IEU-CEPA.
After the last negotiationround in Brussels, they are positive to see progress.
The two parties have concurred on Economic Cooperation and Capacity Building(ECCB), making it the seventh section of IEU-CEPA completed so far.
The two sides agreed to continue to accelerate the progress in negotiations toadhere to instructions from President Joko Widodo and the EU leadership.
Head of the EU team - the European Commission's Deputy Head of Southeast Asia,Australia, and New Zealand Unit,Filip Deraedt said that the 16th round of negotiations is expected to take place by2023-end in Brussels.
Indonesia and the European Union share the samecommitment to maintain the positive momentum from the progress achieved in theround.
In 2022, the total trade value betweenIndonesia and the EU reached 33.2 billion USD. Indonesia's exports to the EU reached 21.5 billion USD while Indonesian imports from the EU were valued at 11.7 billion USD.
Some of Indonesia's main export commodities to theEU in 2022 are palm oil and its derivatives, coal, and leather footwear.Meanwhile, Indonesia mainly imports fromthe EU steel and iron pipes, medicine and vaccines, and recycled paper orcardboard./.