Airlangga Departs for Shanghai to Sign WAICO Establishment Agreement

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto departed for Shanghai, China, for a visit from 16 to 19 July 2026 to sign the establishment agreement for the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO). WAICO is an international organisation initiated as a platform to formulate governance, ethical standards, and collaboration for artificial intelligence (AI) development at a global level. Indonesia’s participation in WAICO is a concrete follow-up to the bilateral cooperation commitment in the digital economy sector previously signed in 2022 by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao. “Indonesia’s involvement as one of the first signatories in the formation of this organisation affirms the government’s proactive commitment to ensuring Indonesia plays a role as a key subject in the world digital economy constellation, not merely as a market,” Airlangga said in a statement in Jakarta on Thursday. The signing of WAICO’s establishment is projected to provide a significant boost to the government’s efforts to make the digital economy sector a main engine for driving and propelling Indonesia’s new economic growth. Furthermore, the working visit is also directed at strengthening strategic partnerships, securing investment commitments, and encouraging collaboration in technology transfer within the AI, telecommunications infrastructure, and advanced robotics sectors with several leading Chinese companies. This momentum is also being utilised to accelerate the transformation of bilateral investment patterns towards high-value-added sectors. In recent years, China has consistently been one of the largest sources of investment for Indonesia. In 2025, the value of Chinese investment in Indonesia was recorded at 7.5 billion US dollars. When accumulated with the investment value from Hong Kong, which reached 10.6 billion US dollars, the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from these two economies ranks first and is the largest nationally. In addition to increasingly close investment relations, the Indonesia-China economic partnership is also supported by continuously growing trade relations. China is Indonesia’s largest trading partner, with Indonesia’s main export commodities including mineral products, iron and steel, nickel, vegetable oils, and metal ores. In 2025, total trade between the two countries reached 167.36 billion US dollars, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC). Meanwhile, in the January-June 2026 period, the trade balance showed a surplus for Indonesia of 5.6 billion US dollars. Chinese investment in Indonesia is still dominated by basic industrial sectors, such as the metal and electricity industries. Through the signing of WAICO, the government is targeting a significant leap in capital flows into high-tech industrial sectors capable of strengthening national economic transformation, increasing productivity, and creating greater added value. As a follow-up to these efforts, Airlangga is scheduled to hold a series of business meetings and direct investment promotions with the leadership of several Chinese technology companies, including ByteDance, Unitree, Deep Robotics, and FiberHome. “These meetings are expected to yield concrete cooperation opportunities that can accelerate the development of a high-tech industrial ecosystem, expand knowledge and technology transfer, and strengthen the competitiveness of national industry,” asserted Coordinating Minister Airlangga.