Apindo Urges Acceleration of Trade Agreement Implementation
The business community requires policy certainty, end-to-end resolution of obstacles, and collaboration oriented towards implementing solutions.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Employers’ Association (Apindo) is urging the acceleration of the conclusion and implementation of various international trade agreements as a means to expand market access, enhance export competitiveness, and strengthen national economic resilience.
Apindo Chairwoman Shinta W Kamdani, in a statement in Jakarta on Wednesday, cited several such trade agreements, including the Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA), the Indonesia-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (ICA-CEPA), and the Indonesia-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement (I-EAEU FTA).
“Apindo views that economic challenges cannot be adequately addressed with mere diagnosis. The business community requires policy certainty, end-to-end resolution of obstacles, and collaboration oriented towards implementing solutions,” said Shinta.
She assessed that the conclusion and implementation of these trade agreements are expected to be one of the solutions to the pressures on the business community, which are now coming from multiple directions simultaneously.
Shinta noted that the rupiah exchange rate had briefly touched Rp18,200 per US dollar and remained above Rp18,000 in July 2026. Furthermore, national logistics costs still burden 14.29 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), above the average of other countries in the region.
She said the various obstacles faced are also increasingly limiting the business community’s room for manoeuvre.
“When all these pressures come simultaneously, companies lose the space to cope with rising costs,” said Shinta.
The Industrial Confidence Index (IKI) also declined from 54.12 in January 2026 to 52.90 in June 2026.
Although still above the expansion threshold of 50, Shinta assessed that this downward trend indicates that industrial players’ optimism is increasingly being eroded by production pressures and weakening market demand.
At the global level, following geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, world oil prices had surged to around 120 US dollars per barrel, and after falling back to the range of 70-80 US dollars at the end of June, they rose again to 100 US dollars.
However, according to Shinta, the main issue for business players is not merely the oil price figure, but the difficulty in projecting logistics, distribution, and production costs amidst ongoing uncertainty.
“Almost all countries are facing pressures due to the global economic slowdown, changes in industrial structure, technological disruption, and the restructuring of global supply chains. What differentiates each country is how quickly policy can act as a cushion for the business community so that these pressures do not develop into a larger wave of layoffs,” she added.