"The refusal of what the US has done to Indonesian agro-based products was a black campaign in order to restrict such commodities to get tariff reduction at five percent," economist Enny Sri Hartati said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian economist Enny Sri Hartati assumed that major industrialized states, particularly the United States, conducted black-campaigns on Indonesian agro-based products by rejecting the inclusion of the commodities on the list of 54 eco-friendly goods.

"The refusal of what the US has done to Indonesian agro-based products was a black campaign in order to restrict such commodities to get tariff reduction at five percent," said Enny who served as the director of Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) in an interview with Antara here on Wednesday.

Enny said that she acknowledges the forest degradation that occurred in Indonesia. However, she believed that the forest damage was not caused by palm oil and rubber plantations.

She said local crude palm oil companies are planting their trees in industrial forests, not in conservation forest areas.

"Meanwhile US uses the damaged forest issue as a tool to refuse Indonesian agro-based products, including Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and rubber as well as rattan commodity be included on list of eco-friendly goods," Enny said.

Enny said refusal of the products to enter the list of environment goods can affect not only the market, but also the investment potential in the sector.

She said the environment damage issue will affect to the investors willing to do agro-based business in Indonesia as the products were not included in the environment goods list.

Previously, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade ministers meeting in Surabaya, E Java last weekend failed to agree several additional products to the list of 54 environmental goods to get tariff reduction at five percent.

Although several representatives of Chile, Peru and Papua New Guinea are willing to discuss the issue, yet the USA delegates refused to discuss the inclusion of CPO and rubber commodities on the list.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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