With trade standing at around 3.9 billion euros in 2023, Italy is Indonesia’s third largest trading partner within the EU after Germany and the Netherlands. Nearly seventy Italian companies have a permanent presence in the country in the energy, construction, transportation, defense, agribusiness, industrial machinery as well as consumer goods and services sectors, and are in part united under the Association of Italian Businesses in Indonesia (IBAI).
Despite such a structured presence, the numbers of the Indonesian market show that trade with Italy – as well as with other European countries – is below its potential. In fact, the volume of trade exchange could increase significantly. The Italian and Indonesian economies are strongly complementary, and there are many opportunities that the country presents in terms of economic partnerships in the fields of energy, infrastructure, logistics, transportation, agribusiness, tourism and maritime cooperation.
Various technical agreements have been signed to initiate institutional and business collaborations in order to strengthen bilateral economic cooperation. In parallel, Italy supports the negotiation of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Indonesia, which will lay the groundwork to increase trade and broaden it to a greater number of sectors, including services and procurement.
Information regarding the main indicators on trade and investment flows can be found in the Economic Observatory tab of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Infomercati Indonesia page curated by the Embassy of Italy in Jakarta and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.