Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said in Jakarta on Friday that the total value of business transactions reached Rp 153.38 trillion (USD$10.96 billion) during the 33^rd Trade Expo Indonesia (TEI), which was held at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE), BSD City, Tangerang, Banten from Oct. 16 to 20.

The amount, which represents a 29 percent increase from Rp 127.33 trillion last year, exceeded the initial target of Rp 137 trillion. It consisted of $9.29 billion in investment commitments, $1.54 billion in transactions in trade in goods and $120 million in transactions in trade in services.

Investment commitments rose sharply by 67.44 percent from only $5.55 billion at last year's event, thanks to the large investment commitments made by Egypt, Japan and China, which respectively reached $270.51 million $260 million and $201.5 million.

“Egypt is quite an interesting market because it is part of our [export] diversification effort,” he said, adding that the investments included palm oil, coffee and automotive components.

The minister said food and beverage products were among the top-selling items with $390.26 million in transactions,  which accounted for 26.16 percent of the trade transactions, followed by paper and pulp at $289.64 million (19.41 percent) and palm oil and CPO products at $166.65 million (11.17 percent).

The event, which was organized by the National Export Development Directorate General of the Trade Ministry, was attended by 1,500 exhibitors, 600 of which are micro, small and medium enterprises. It also attracted 42,796 visitors from 36 countries, including Brazil, Nigeria and the Netherlands.

Popular

Power begins to return after outage in Indonesia's Bali island

Coffee, gold push up inflation to 1.95 percent in April

The fragile promise of pluralism, religious freedom in Southeast Asia