Pacific Alliance Eyes Trade Opportunities with Indonesia

• Nov 16, 2017

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The Pacific Alliance, a regional integration of four countries, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, will hold the first trade and investment seminar in Indonesia in cooperation with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce (Kadin) on November 21 in Jakarta.

The Ambassador of Colombia to Indonesia, Jose Renato Salazar, said the union represents 41 percent of the GDP in Latin America and the Carribean, and the seminar was aimed to introduce investment opportunities in the four countries.

One of the most potential sector includes agribusiness, according to Diego Cifuentes Vargas, the executive director of ProColombia, the country’s trade office. But each of the Pacific Alliance member state offers different commodities.

“We are a very diverse ecosystem, sector like the agribusiness is similar but with differentiated products. Colombia has coffee, avocado, while Chile has wine,” he said yesterday.

Because of the differences, Renato Salazar said the four countries complement each other. Initiated in 2012, the alliance tries foster deeper integration and promotes higher growth and development. The countries combined have a total of 225 million people and a GDP per capita of $ 17,442.

The Pacific Alliance is also looking to strengthen cooperation with ASEAN. “Having a negotiation will be the medium term plan for us, but we’re not there yet,” said Renato Salazar. In the future, he mentioned that the Pacific Alliance and ASEAN cooperation is likely to happen.

“But right now, we’re at the initial phase of getting to know each other,” said Federico Salas, the Ambassador of Mexico to Indonesia.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/11/16/056913273/Pacific-Alliance-Eyes-Trade-Opportunities-with-Indonesia