Indonesia said implementation of free trade in the Asia Pacific region should be based on the principles of resilience, inclusiveness and innovation, connectivity, and equitableness (RICE).

“In order to implement free trade as intended by the APEC declarers in Bogor, we would continue to seek to maintain partnership through the RICE principles,” Vice President Jusuf Kalla said in the first session of APEC leaders in this Peruvian capital city on Sunday.

In the meeting of 21 APEC economic leaders, Kalla said amid the economic malaise, Indonesia is set to seek to achieve the “Bogor Goals” agreed upon by the APEC leaders 22 years earlier.

He said Indonesia already started to carry out a number of programs of liberalization and has continued to change in the past several decades that currently the country was able to cut import duties on goods from countries of the region .

“Indonesia has even jumped to the ranks of 10 easiest countries in the world in doing business, according to a World Bank report. A survey by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2016 said Indonesia was the 9th most attractive country for investors. This reflected progress from 2014 when Indonesia was ranked the 14th,” he said.

He said there are three factors to cope with the global economic slowdown and growing protectionism.

“First is that free trade and investment needs to be expanded and economic integration must be comprehensive that would need consultations and coordination between the legislative, executive and community elements nationally as well as regionally,” he said.

The second is that there should fair opportunity and healthy competition to boost economic growth, he said.

The third is by involving micro, small and medium enterprises, farmers, fishermen, unskilled workers and local business people in the process of regional free trade and investment, he said.

He said APEC also has to pay attention to developing countries where 70-90 percent of their poor people live in rural areas.

“Rural development is important in seeking to accelerate economic growth in this region,” Kalla said.

source: antaranews.com