Irvan Tisnabudi

Buyers browsing merchandise at Trade Expo Indonesia. The show exceeded its goal for orders, showing a global recovery in demand. (JG Photo)

Indonesian Trade Show Rings Up $285m in Export Orders

Signalling a rise in global demand as the world economy recovers, Trade Expo Indonesia was a success this year, collecting $285 million in export orders, beating the $230 million target, the Trade Ministry announced on Tuesday.

“We expect the expo will lead to further export deals with overseas buyers,” Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said.

The trade show, which officially closed on Sunday, was attended by 7,914 potential buyers from 99 countries, and 770 companies participated.

The expo’s biggest success was the trained migrant labor sector, accounting for $61 million in orders. About 14,500 workers found jobs in the construction, hospitality, health care and domestic worker fields in nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Italy, India and Egypt.

Last year’s trade expo brought in $217 million, with trained labor accounting for $20 million.

Other products that sold well at the expo were furniture, motor vehicles spare parts, electronics, footwear, and food and beverages.

This year’s trade expo was dominated by buyers outside of Indonesia’s main export markets of the US, Japan and Europe. More than 62 percent of the buyers came from nations such as India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.

Deals with these buyers represented $143.5 million, or 64 percent, of the total.

Of the nation’s more traditional buyers, Germany compiled the most orders followed by Japan.

Mari said the Trade Expo was good news for future exports, after they declined in the third quarter by 6.75 percent as the global economic downturn continued to sap demand.

“Because of the crisis, non-oil and gas exports had a downturn [last quarter], but oil and gas exports rose.Next year’s export figures will rise,” Mari assured.

“This year, our country has a big trade surplus [exports outpace imports 2 to 1] because other countries are producing fewer exports due to the crisis, but there has been a recent increase,” Mari said.

“Next year, the world economy will get better, there have been positive signs from industrial manufacturing countries, and for palm oil consumers like India, that they will resume normal economic growth, so this will push [Indonesia’s] exports.”

But Mari added that an increase in exports would have be supported by investment in the nation’s industries.

Although the nation’s relatively new trained migrant labor sector dominated the expo, Mari said other sectors, including electronics and the automotive industry, had to diversify to support export growth.

“We aim to become the regional production central [of Southeast Asia]. This is Indonesia’s goal in the Asean free-trade agreement."

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