T

he European Union (EU) is providing up to ¤15 million (US$19.52 million) in a grant to finance the Trade Support Program II (TSP II) to help Indonesian exporters promote the quality of their products so that they are able to penetrate the EU market, a EU envoy said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

EU ambassador to Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and ASEAN Julian Wilson said that the project, which includes training and technical support, started in 2011 and would be complete in 2014.

The TSP II is coordinated by the Trade Ministry and involves various key government ministries and agencies, including the Industry Ministry, Agriculture Ministry, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, and National Standards Agency.

Julian said that with the TSP II program, Indonesian companies are taught about how to meet the international trade standards set by EU countries. By meeting EU standards, they will also be able to meet the standards imposed by other developed countries, he added.

TSP II is basically the follow up to the successful TSP I that was implemented between February 2006 and April 2008. Based on the report issued by the Organization for Economic and Cooperation Development (OECD), TSP I achieved satisfying results such as an increase in the approval of fisheries exporters to the EU from 109 in 2007 to 176 in 2011.

Julian explained that the EU also put US$58 million into a similar program to speed up negotiations on the establishment of the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between the EU and Indonesia.

He hoped that the CEPA would also enable not only large but medium-size companies from the EU to invest in Indonesia so that the trade volume could be tripled within five to 10 years.

Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said that the technical assistance provided by the EU was quite useful to improve the quality of Indonesian products so that they are able to meet the standards required by international buyers.

He told reporters that even though Indonesia enjoyed a US$7.43 billion surplus trade balance with the EU last year, the contribution of the EU to Indonesia’s total exports declined from 18 percent to 14 percent of Indonesia’s total exports over the last 10 years. The technical assistance scheme, however, was considered to be an opportunity for Indonesia to produce more added-value products .

Since the implementation of TSP II in 2011, there has been progress in the quality of Indonesia’s fishery and agriculture products.

According to Gardjita Budi, the Director of quality and standardization of the Agriculture Ministry, the quality of Indonesian nutmeg, which is often found to have been contaminated with aflatoxin, has now improved and meets the EU standard . (koi)