Indonesia may join Canada, Japan, and nine other states in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as the country finalizes its application to the 11-member trade deal.
Indonesia’s co-ordinating minister for economic affairs told Nikkei on Friday that Jakarta has “concluded the internal process for submitting the application.” Indonesia is also in the middle of applying for full membership to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The U.K., now in the throes of an election campaign, is poised to officially join the CPTPP later this year. China and Taiwan submitted applications in September 2021. CPTPP members have not ruled on either application.
Even if Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s largest economy — secures the required unanimous consent from CPTPP members, it likely would not accede to the agreement until 2026 at the earliest.
Canada weighs response to ‘flood’ of nickel from Indonesia, China
Last month, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa was working with “democratic partners ... to discuss collective responses” to alleged manipulation by Indonesia and China to “flood” the global nickel market. Freeland said the surge in supply has harmed some Western nickel producers.
A recent APF Canada Investment Monitor report noted that, from 2003-19, Canadian companies invested more than C$900 million in Indonesia’s mining sector. These companies are also significantly involved in nickel mining; PT Vale Indonesia, a subsidiary of Vale Canada Limited, owns Indonesia’s largest nickel mine.
Indonesia supplies more than 40 per cent of the world’s nickel, and the industry is tied to the country’s broader economic prosperity. But as APF Media Fellow Yvonne Lau has independently reported, Indonesia’s nickel sector “holds a blotted track record of human and environmental harms.”
Canada is currently negotiating a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Indonesia, and a Canadian trade delegation — led by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service — will be in Jakarta next week for a major mining conference.
