President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo met with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey during the G20 Leader’s Retreat on Friday. The two leaders discussed ways to improve future trade relations between the two countries.

“I want to emphasize the importance to us to work against the negative trends in Indonesia-Spain trade values, which have declined by 5.76 percent each year over the last five years,” Jokowi told Brey.

With the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA), Jokowi said Indonesia was ready to improve trading relationships with European countries, including Spain.

"We expect support from Your Honor [Brey] to help accelerate the completion of the IEU-CEPA negotiations,” the President said.

Jokowi also expects Spain to treat Indonesian palm oil products fairly amid rampant negative campaigns directed at the products in the European market.

“I hope Spain will help us ensure that the partnership model for the standardization of wood and timber products through the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade [FLEGT] agreement can be implemented for palm oil as well,” Jokowi said.

In the meeting, Jokowi expressed his appreciation to Airbus Defense and Space, which has chosen Bandung as its assembly center for the Asia Pacific market.

At the end of their meeting, Prime Minister Brey restated Spain’s support for the nomination of Indonesia as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the period 2019-2020.  (yon/ebf)

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