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ndonesia'€™s bilateral economic relations with member-states of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not be adversely affected if the government decides not to join the US-led free trade agreement, analysts have said.

Indonesia for Global Justice executive director Riza Damanik said Indonesia would remain attractive to investors and bilateral relations would go on as before given the country'€™s attractive qualities, such as cheap labor and a wealth of natural resources.

'€œWith or without the TPP there will still be companies from the US, for example, wanting to invest in Indonesia,'€ he said on the sidelines of a discussion hosted by Paramadina Graduate School on Thursday.

He said the government should not be overly concerned about losing markets if it decided to shun the TPP, adding that investment and imports from the US were stable.

Paramadina University rector Firmanzah likewise said global markets would remain open to Indonesia.

'€œWe can diversify exports to nontraditional markets,'€ he said.

Debate on the country'€™s possible participation in TPP emerged following President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s statement during his US visit that Indonesia intended to join the group. Critics, however, said the country was not ready to join the Pacific grouping.

The Association of Indonesian Traditional Market Traders (APPSI) expressed concern that the participation in the TPP would affect their business.

'€œMore customers will buy imported products; this could kill off the businesses of traders who only sell local goods, as they don'€™t have enough capital to buy imported goods,'€ said Maulana, the association'€™s secretary-general.

Thousands of small traders, he added, were already going bust in the face of mushrooming modern retail, which offered a wider panoply of goods.

However, the Pacific trade deal could help secure supplies of imported staple foods while at the same time bring more major traders into the existing '€œoligopoly market'€, Maulana said.

Twelve countries, whose combined gross domestic product (GDP) reaches US$27.8 trillion, or around 40 percent of the global economy, and which have a combined population of 808.7 million, have entered into the TPP.

The trade pact has sparked global debate over its highly secretive negotiations and several agreed points, such as equal treatment of state-owned, private and foreign enterprises and investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) through international arbitration.

Senior economist Emil Salim said that the TPP was an '€œunequal playing field'€ for Indonesia given the country'€™s low ease of doing business rate, poor infrastructure, low education levels and poor central and local governance compared with the 12 participating countries.

'€œInstead, Indonesia should focus on its trade relationship with China and ASEAN countries through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership [RCEP],'€ he said.

The RCEP will cover 10 ASEAN member countries, including Indonesia, and six major trading partners '€” China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand '€” to create an integrated market worth $21.4 trillion by 2025.

The Trade Ministry expects RCEP negotiations to be concluded by the middle of next year.