00:00Time to get the business news. Let's bring in Yuka Royer. Yuka, good to see you. Let's start with this huge investment summit here in France today.
00:07Well, Emmanuel Macron's flagship Choose France Summit was back with the president announcing a record 20 billion euros in fresh investments pledged at the event,
00:17beating last year's 15 billion euros. This will add to some 17 billion euros worth of projects already announced.
00:23Details of some 20 billion euros worth of projects pledged at an AI summit earlier this year were also presented.
00:29The French president vowed to ensure France and Europe are more innovative and competitive as the continent is seeing a wave of job cuts and planned closures amid weak economic growth and fierce competition from Asia.
00:43Clearly, the situation is not the best one today in Europe. Let's be lucid about where we stand.
00:51Because of a risk of desynchronization with the rest of the world.
00:54And in fact, if you take the past two to three years, we had to face a fierce competition coming from Southeast Asia and especially China for two reasons.
01:08Level playing field and the loopholes we have on our own regulation.
01:12But we increased a lot of constraints and regulations in a lot of sectors.
01:16Among the business leaders attending the summit, Anindya Bakri, chair of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
01:24He's the first Indonesian to be invited to choose France by the president and is joining us from Versailles.
01:30Thank you for joining us. Great to have you.
01:33Thank you very much for having me.
01:35Now, the summit comes at a time of uncertainty caused by Donald Trump's tariffs.
01:40How difficult is it for businesses right now to plan ahead and how wary are they about making new investments?
01:48Well, first of all, it is as much a challenge as opportunities, especially for a country like Indonesia,
01:55which is the biggest country in Southeast Asia in terms of economy and also population.
02:00Something like this opportunity or challenges is what we look in terms of diversity in our market outside China,
02:10but also through European market, for example.
02:14And number two, we also believe in increasing trade and poor investments.
02:19So for here, when we come to choose France, this is something that we can think about building an ecosystem,
02:25for example, in critical minerals.
02:27So one of the things that we spoke to the French government is how we can also invest in France,
02:35but at the same time processing our critical minerals, for example, in Indonesia,
02:40because France is quite, you know, very much advanced in terms of the technology in processing as well as renewable energy.
02:49So what does France, having returned for Indonesia, why should Indonesia choose France?
02:54Well, first of all, it's a good question.
02:58Sometime this year, Indonesia will have an agreement called Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with you.
03:06And we feel that France can be sort of like the navigator for European Union,
03:12just like how Indonesia can be also the sort of like navigator for Southeast Asian economies.
03:18Now, if we combine between the EU and ASEAN total, the population will be a billion people already.
03:26And you can imagine not only it is a good market, but I think it is also complementary.
03:31On the one hand, we have a big market in Indonesia.
03:34We have critical minerals, renewable energy potentials.
03:38But France has a lot of the technology, expertise, and also experience
03:42to complement for us as a country to go on with that initiative.
03:48Indonesia was threatened with a 32% tariff by Donald Trump last month.
03:52Is your country having to make massive adjustments in its trade policy?
03:59Good thing about this is that on the one hand, yes, we have surplus of $18 billion per year with the US.
04:07But Indonesia as a country, every month has surplus of $1.5 billion to $3 billion in general.
04:13We even have surplus a little bit with China.
04:17So what we're going to do, it looks like the government of Indonesia wants to reallocate
04:21the import of oil and gas derivatives from other countries to the US.
04:27Therefore, the $18 billion will be balanced.
04:29But what's more exciting is that, just like the EU, the US is also interested in our critical minerals
04:37to make sure that the agreement will include something of that nature.
04:42In addition, Indonesia has also launched the new sovereign wealth fund with the size of $900 billion AUM.
04:50So we can also invest in upstream.
04:52So what I'm saying is basically, yes, you know, any tariff will increase inflation.
04:58It's not good for both sides.
05:00But at the same time, you know, done right, we support the balance.
05:04But we can actually do more trades between the two countries.
05:06Do you see a deal coming soon with the United States?
05:12I think a deal, again, this is coming from the business sector.
05:15The government has to decide how they want to deal with this.
05:17But I think on July 8th, two months or one and a half months from now, a deal will be struck.
05:23I had a chance to meet some of the US secretaries a couple of days ago.
05:31And it looks like the sentiment is good.
05:33I cannot say until it's done.
05:35But I think it's looking promising.
05:39And more broadly, how does Indonesia position itself in this multipolar world
05:44with protectionism also on the rise?
05:47Indonesia is not going to or cannot take side between the East and the West.
05:55Because, for example, the largest trading partner of Indonesia is China with $130 million.
06:01The second line is actually the US with $40 million.
06:04So all these times, we've always been very much on the line
06:08in order to ensure that trade investments happen.
06:12But Indonesia is also one of the few countries that China and the US can make money in many sectors.
06:19Mainly, for example, mining.
06:22A company like Freeport can make a lot of money.
06:25Same thing, a company like Kingsan can make a lot of money, for example, in mining.
06:30On critical levels.
06:31But on the other hand, even in social media, both Instagram and TikTok have their market.
06:37And Indonesia is always number one, number three for the companies.
06:40And Indonesia Bakri from the Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
