The Republic of Indonesia deposited its Instrument of Ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement to the Secretary-General of ASEAN on November 3, 2022. With this deposit, the agreement entered into force on January 2, 2023.
RCEP, the world’s-largest trade agreement outside the World Trade Organization, presents a huge opportunity for Indonesia to better integrate into regional value chains and attract investments into its key industries such as manufacturing, digital economy, and downstream industries particularly in commodities processing. As well, the RCEP can pave the way for Indonesia to advance in the global market. The Indonesian government expects RCEP to help Indonesia boost exports and imports by about US$ 5 billion and US$4 billion respectively, and more than double its current trade surplus of US$383 million by 2040.
Following the ratification, Indonesia’s government issued a new rule concerning provisions of origin of goods and provisions for issuing documents of origin for goods exported from Indonesia. This new rule is in line with a facilitative-trade commitment in RCEP, which will increase the smooth flow of export goods and enable Indonesian businesses to benefit from preferential tariffs under the RCEP scheme.
Moreover, RCEP members can benefit from trading and investing in Indonesia due to the country’s huge domestic market of over 270 million people, around 70 million middle-class consumers, and some 60 percent of GPD that is derived from domestic consumption
