T

he current investment and trade environment in Indonesia, coupled with ongoing recovery in the economy at home, has boosted the optimism of US companies to do more business in Southeast Asia'€™s biggest economy, a high-ranking economic official says.

US President Barack Obama declared on Wednesday the end of the financial crisis on American soil and pledged economic policies to benefit its people. The more positive outlook in the world'€™s biggest economy will push up demand for imported goods, as well as enhance the capability of its companies to invest overseas.

Principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the US Department of State, Kurt Tong, said that new areas of interest from the US business community would include aviation and transportation, infrastructure, particularly pertaining to energy, and manufacturing.

'€œI think there is a lot of potential for growth. There are really many opportunities for US businesses to invest more in Indonesia to the benefit of Indonesian economic development and growth,'€ he said in a limited media interview on Thursday.

Earlier last month, 40 top US companies in the food and agriculture, manufacturing, financial services, information and communication technology and energy sectors, grouped under the Business Council, visited Indonesia and discussed with the government and private sector a set of tangible ways for long-term expansion of trade and investment activities mutually beneficial for both countries.

The delegation said in a statement they recognized the vision and initial reforms that the business-focused government had taken to help increase certain investments to pick up the pace of growth in the world'€™s fourth populous nation of 250 million.

Bilateral trade between Indonesia and the US reached US$28 billion in 2013, according to US figures. Indonesia was the 25th largest goods supplier to the US during that year, with knit apparel, rubber, woven apparel, electrical machinery and footwear topping the list of goods.

From January to September last year, the US was the sixth biggest foreign direct investor in Indonesia, with investment of $965.9 million, according to the latest statistics from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

To facilitate trade with emerging countries such as Indonesia, Obama had committed to extend the generalized system of preference (GSP), subject to approval from congress, said Tong.

Informal discussions had been made on this issue, he added. Lower import duties provided by the facility expired at the end of July 2013 and there have been no developments on it up to present.

'€œThere are quite a lot of trade policy issues being discussed in Washington simultaneously right now and GSP is an important piece of that discussion,'€ Tong said.

In another development, the press attaché of the US Embassy in Indonesia, John E. Johnson, said that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had yet to issue a final decision regarding the eligibility of palm oil to be included in the US renewable energy program. A recent EPA peer-review report confirmed that palm oil-based biofuel was not considered renewable.

'€œThere are no restrictions on exports of palm oil to the US, either for biofuel or for other uses. It'€™s an ongoing process and there'€™s no date set for the final decision,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.