Enhancing promotion to deal with five percent target of 2003 export

Sari P. Setiogi The Jakarta Post Jakarta

The National Agency for Export Development (BPEN) will intensify its promotional activities abroad this year to support government aims to increase exports by 5 percent.

To facilitate its intensified campaign, BPEN's Rp 45 billion (US$5 million) budget in 2002 would be increased by 50 percent in 2003, BPEN chairwoman Diah Maulida said Tuesday.

"We hope the country's export revenue will increase to more than $47 billion this year from around $45 billion estimated for 2002."

Indonesia's exports during the first 11 months of last year reached $41.08 billion, up 1.82 percent from US$40.33 billion in the same period of 2001.

Diah said that this year, BPEN would coordinate 53 trade promotion activities in various countries and open four new Indonesian Trade Promotion Centers (ITPC) -- in Guang Zhou (China), Hamburg (Germany), Johannesburg (South Africa) and Sao Paulo (Brazil).

"For comparison, we organized only 40 exhibitions and opened an ITPC in Budapest, Hungary, last year," she said.

She said the planned trade promotion activities would consist of 49 Indonesian trade exhibitions and four international trade fairs, namely the Dubai International Trade Fair 2003 in May, the California Gift Show in July, the Tokyo Gift Show in September and Thessaloniki in Greece, also in September.

"With these promotion activities, we aim to expand our country's exports to non-traditional markets in Africa, the Middle East and South America while sustaining sales in traditional markets in North America and Europe," she said.

Indonesia's exports to non-traditional markets only accounted for about 8 percent of its total exports worldwide, she said.

She said BPEN, which is an affiliate of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, would also send trade delegations to various countries in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

During the promotion activities, the delegations would intensify the promotion of the country's most competitive commodities, particularly those from the agricultural sector, such as crude palm oil, cocoa, coffee and fishery produce, she said.