Challenges
With an ultimate goal to improve trade and investment policy and decision-making in order to underpin sustainable growth and development in both countries, the Indonesia-Australia Business Partnership Group (IA-BPG) sought to identify impediments to bilateral trade and investment and recommend mitigation mechanisms that could be explored in the economic partnership agreement between the governments of Indonesia and Australia (IA-CEPA) negotiations.
Our Approach
Kiroyan Partners assisted IA-BPG by carrying out facilitation and secretariat functions for its members, namely the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN Indonesia), the Australia-Indonesia Business Council (AIBC), the Indonesia-Australia Business Council (IABC), the Indonesian Employers Association (APINDO) and the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group). In this function, we organized broad-based consultations with businesses and member associations through individual interviews, workshops, and written submissions that have been hailed as “the gold standard” for private sector engagement in the preliminary stages of a bilateral trade negotiation of this type.
Results
This activity resulted in a joint business position paper in 2012, that consists of business advice to both governments on what the business communities’ judge the primary trade, investment, and economic cooperation objectives should be.
In 2016, governments of both countries restated their support for a bilateral agreement, We helped the IA-BPG in producing updates on the joint business positions that presented the features that the IA-BPG is advocating for the IA-CEPA and became an important reference for the bilateral trade and investment negotiations, which is currently under finalization by the two governments.
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