Governors from across Indonesia have agreed to make inter-province trade a high priority.

The agreement was made during a national meeting of the Indonesian Provincial Government Association (APPSI) in Bandung, West Java on Wednesday.

“Currently, trade acceleration has been oriented toward overseas trade, exports and imports,” said APPSI chairman Syahrul Yasin Limpo, who is also South Sulawesi governor.

"But, we don’t need to import textiles because we can get them from West Java. We don’t need to import rice because we can get it from South Sulawesi,” he said. 

He said APPSI would report to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Thursday on the inter-province trade agreement, including the progress and the obstacles.

One issue that would be discussed was how to improve inter-province connectivity to ensure that delivery costs did not exceed those of overseas trade, he added.

As an example, he noted that people in Java consumed imported corn from other countries rather than buying it from eastern Indonesian provinces because the delivery costs were cheaper.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said there was still a lot of potential to increase inter-province trade. “For example, the Jakarta provincial administration needs 43,000 cows every day, about 60 percent of which are still imported from Australia,” he said.

He added that the governors needed to look for solutions on how to increase prosperity in their respective regions and to communicate directly with the president. (kmt/bbn)