TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsLower US tariff to boost economy 0.5 percent, Luhut says
Citing the results of a macroeconomic analysis on Indonesia's reduced tariff rate of 19 percent, the DEN chief says Jakarta's new trade deal with Washington will help boost employment, welfare and labor-intensive industries to encourage more foreign investment and boost the overall economy.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Luhut Pandjaitan (center) smiles as he is installed as chairman of the National Economic Council (DEN) on Oct. 21, 2024, during a ceremony to inaugurate of cabinet ministers and agency heads at the State Palace in Jakarta. (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A)
T
he head of the National Economic Council (DEN) has hailed Jakarta’s newly inked trade deal with Washington, which has resulted in a reduction of the United States’ tariffs on Indonesian goods from 32 to 19 percent, as a “crucial stepping stone” to accelerate deregulation efforts as well as to reduce logistics and production costs.
“This deal makes Indonesia the country with the lowest additional US tariff burden among Southeast Asian nations that have a trade surplus with the US. That gives us a significant competitive edge,” DEN chief Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, formerly the coordinating maritime affairs and investment minister, said in a statement on Thursday, as quoted by Antara.
Singapore is the only ASEAN country that is subject to the US baseline tariff of 10 percent.
US President Donald Trump sent letters last week to inform most other countries in the region of their latest tariff rates: Malaysia received a slightly increased rate of 25 percent, Cambodia received a reduced rate of 36 percent, both Laos and Myanmar saw their rates reduced to 40 percent, while Thailand’s rate remained unchanged at 36 percent.
Vietnam has meanwhile secured a deal with the US that resulted in a tariff rate of 20 percent, a significant cut from 46 percent previously.
Read also: Domestic concerns loom as businesses cheer on US-RI deal
In his statement, Luhut also revealed that DEN had conducted a comparative macroeconomic analysis on Indonesia’s former and current tariff rates. The resulting projection showed that the 19 percent rate could lead to a 0.5 percent boost in gross domestic product (GDP), driven by stronger investment and consumption.
