Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto met Canadian Minister of International Trade, SMEs and Economic Development Mary Ng who was visiting the ASEAN region. This meeting discussed the potential for Indonesia-Canada cooperation in terms of investment and trade which has not been fully realized. Airlangga revealed that Canada has an open market that makes Indonesia's potential to enter the United States market through Canada. He added that economic cooperation with Canada should not be limited to commodity trade that has been going on so far, but must be oriented towards the future. According to Airlangga, he and Mary share the same view regarding the great potential for collaboration in order to improve the digital capabilities of Indonesian and Canadian workers. Moreover, Canada has a digital super cluster in Vancouver. For this reason, Airlangga asked Canada to be open to working together in increasing the capacity of Indonesian talent in order to support the development of semiconductors. "Indonesia has prepared the Nongsa Digital Park in Batam and the SEZ Singosari Malang with adequate infrastructure to develop digital talent," quoted from his statement, Wednesday (12/10/2022). Not only that, Airlangga also mentioned the availability of animation studios and nature studios in the Nongsa area, such as the film studio in Vancouver. He also offered the Canadian Ambassador in Jakarta, Nadia Burger, to directly inspect Nongsa Digital Park (NDP) and the Singosari SEZ, which already have infrastructure that is able to attract the younger generation. Including a natural studio to produce films. Meanwhile, the Canadian Embassy said it would follow up on the potential for this collaboration and said LaSalle College, which has been in Indonesia for 25 years, plans to expand into digital education. On this occasion, Canadian Minister of International Trade, SMEs and Economic Development Mary Ng said the Indonesia-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (ICA-CEPA) would be the Canadian government's top priority. According to Mary, the CEPA structure will make it easier for Canadian businesses to invest, export, and do business in Indonesia. Currently, the ICA-CEPA negotiations have been going well for 2 rounds and are expected to be completed in a short time. Mary admitted that her party would be more flexible in formulating the ICA-CEPA. However, he also hopes that the agreement can be future-looking so that it can maintain high competitiveness.
Mary is of the view that partnership with Indonesia is very important in enhancing strategic partnership with ASEAN considering Indonesia's strategic role in ASEAN. For this reason, the Government of Canada hopes that Indonesia can become Canada's entry point to ASEAN. Mary reported that within the next week, Canadian Commercial Cooperation (CCC) will sign the G-to-G MoU in order to facilitate G-to-G transactions. He said Canada is trying to scale up or expand MSMEs by entering the United States market because the population and market in Canada are relatively small. He also compared the Indonesian population and the potential of Indonesian MSMEs to partner with Canadian MSMEs is very large. So Mary hopes that her party and Indonesia can jointly scale up to the United States market. In addition, Mary revealed that Canada is the world's largest developer of artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor programming and has education and training programs in these fields. He explained that Canada has a large Muslim population, so there is potential for people-to-people exchanges in the education sector. "In an effort to increase the number of Indonesian students to Canada, the Canadian Embassy has held Study Fairs in several cities in Indonesia to promote education in Canada and the immigration process to Canada," he said. Meanwhile, regarding agricultural cooperation, especially the beef sector, Mary hopes that the Canadian government can obtain halal certification from the Indonesian government. To follow up on this, Airlangga is said to be talking to MUI to obtain a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA). The Ministry of Agriculture is also rumored to be visiting Brazil in the near future to review the Slaughterhouse (RPH). So hopefully, the Ministry of Agriculture can visit Canada at the same time with the same goal. For information, this meeting ended by exchanging souvenirs. The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, as well as the Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Deputy for Coordination of International Economic Cooperation at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs.
