Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Co-Captain of the Anies-Muhaimin Winning National Team (Timnas AMIN) Thomas Lembong is determined that his party wants to reduce economic dependence on a particular country. One of them is dependence on China, if it wins the 2024 presidential election.

Thomas does not want to repeat the mistakes made by many other countries, including Germany, which has quite high economic dependence on the panda country.

He is also worried that with the current high level of dependency, Indonesia will be affected when China's economy starts to weaken. For example, starting from the import-export component.

“It's not just exports, but there are many other things that they are no longer as proud of as before, disbursing large amounts of credit, they now also have to withdraw to save their finances,” said Tom in CNBC Indonesia's Your Money Your Vote program, as quoted Sunday (7/1/2023).

“In the end, we are left in a slump because of excessive dependence on just one trading partner, yes, the dominance of one trading partner is very problematic,” he added.

Several groups have also confirmed that every 1% weakening of China's economy will weaken Indonesia's economic growth by 0.3%-0.6%. This was conveyed by Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati and former Minister of Finance Chatib Basri.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) also noted that China is still the country with the largest export share in Indonesia. January-November 2023, the portion will be 25.49% of Indonesia's total export destination countries. Below that are the ASEAN countries whose share is 18.56%, only the United States 9.54%, India 8.31%, and the European Union 6.84%

In terms of imports, it is the same, Indonesia imports the majority of its various needs from China with a share of import value of 33.31% in the January-November 2023 period. Below that is ASEAN without Thailand 11.2%, Japan 8.92%, the European Union 6, 54%, and Thailand 6.54%.

“At the same time, because we are so confident about the growth of our exports to China, we end up fighting with the European Union, about palm oil, about nickel, even though we need diversification, we need lots of trading partners, not just one,” stressed Tom.

Therefore, Tom ensured that the AMIN candidate pair would reform relations with trading partners through steps that were in line with national interests, and the need to diversify economic partner countries.

“That's what made us conceptualize what is called a values-based policy because we have to be clear about what values ​​we hold firmly, what norms we hold firmly, that must be the compass,” said Tom.

Can't be China-centric

Not only Anies and Cak Imin, apparently candidate pair Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD also have the same view. Member of the Expert Council of the National Winning Team (TPN) Ganjar-Mahfud, Sunarsip admitted that the Indonesian economy is currently still too dependent on China. Because of this, he said Ganjar-Mahfud would diversify international relations.

“If we want to pursue high economic growth and of course maintain quality and maintain economic equality, of course we focus on our strengths while diversifying. In the context of geopolitics and international relations, we must diversify international relations,” said Sunarsip in the Your Money Your Vote program entitled “Economic Strategy for Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates in the Midst of War and Global Uncertainty, quoted on Sunday (7/1/2024).

“Today we are too China-centric. We can't be China-centric anymore, I agree because that will also lead to dependency,” he said.

Sunarsip said an economy that depends on one country is not good for Indonesia. He believes this often repeats itself. For example, during the time of President Suharto. According to him, in the early days of the New Order Indonesia was too dependent on the United States.

Then, Indonesia's dependence shifted to Japan in the 1990s. “What is called centrist is not good. In the early days of Pak Harto's development, it was very America-centric. In the 90s it was very Japan-centric. Now it has shifted to China-centric. It is not good everywhere if a pattern like that is developed,” he said.

Therefore, Sunarsip hopes for diversification in Indonesia's international relations both in the fields of trade, investment and so on. According to him, there are many global communities and organizations that Indonesia can approach to establish business relationships.

He gave the example of the BRICS community (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). According to him, this multilateral organization covers 20% of World Gross Domestic Product. Apart from that, he gave the example of the economic community in the Middle East which consists of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

He said Middle Eastern countries were keen to invest in new and renewable energy. Indonesia, he said, is a country that has a lot of green energy potential.

“They have an investment orientation which is our need too, they want to develop their energy market and we also need investors to develop our energy, whether fossil energy or new renewable energy,” he said.

Sunarsip believes that Indonesia has various potentials that will make other countries interested in working together. He believes that expanding trade relations will make the Indonesian economy more resilient to world uncertainty.

“So we still have the principle that yes, we have challenges, but we have a strong enough fortress. It's just a matter of how we use this for development,” he stressed.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(fsd/fsd)