As the 42nd ASEAN Summit gets under way in Labuan Bajo, President Jokowi and Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh are sure the cooperation between the two countries will help increase trade value to reach USD 15-billion by 2028, according to reporting from Tempo.
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi relayed this during the ASEAN Summit on May 9. She believes the two leaders are convinced that the goal can be reached “with conditions that every trade restriction or challenge is reduced or eliminated entirely,” said the Minister, Antara News reported.
The trade goal increase became an agreement between the two countries when President Jokowi received a state visit from Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Puc at the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java, at the end of last year, on December 22, 2022, say Tempo.
The agreement was reached after the two leaders learned that the USD 10-billion trade target set for 2023 had been exceeded in 2021, by over USD 1-billion.
President Jokowi at that time also called attention to the obstacles of Indonesian agricultural and fruit products getting in to the Vietnamese market.
“In addition, the two leaders also agreed to enhance cooperation in the field of new and renewable energy (EBT),” Retno said.
Tempo also report that President Jokowi and Prime Minister Chinh agreed to accelerate the implementation arrangement and ratification process of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) negotiations. The negotiations were completed after an intensive 12-year process regarding the EEZ boundary lines between the two countries based on the 1982 UNCLOS.
Source: Tempo, Antara News