Dubai is an ideal partner to help Indonesia expand its trade into lucrative new markets, according to industry experts speaking at the first-ever Global Business Forum (GBF) ASEAN, which is being hosted on the side-lines of Expo 2020 Dubai.

Organised by Dubai Chamber under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, GBF ASEAN is exploring ways of increasing bilateral trade and commerce between Dubai and the 10-member stares that make up the Association of South East Asian Nations.

The second day of the forum featured a session titled ‘Define – Reform and Growth,’ with H.E.AirlanggaHartarto, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of Indonesia and Asim Al Abbasi, Chief Financial Officer at DP World participating joining a ‘fireside chat’ to discuss trade relations between Indonesia and the UAE.

H.E Hartarto, confirmed that Indonesia, as the largest economy in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries, is keen to expand its trade network to African and South American markets utilising the massive logistic abilities of Dubai.

“As the country has the largest population in the RCEP region and the strongest emerging economy, the Indonesian economic landscape focuses more on increasing the manufacturing abilities and adopting the advanced technology to raise efficiency and productivity. We believe that DP World can help a lot in supporting our mission in lowering the logistic cost and enhancing our national logistic ecosystem,” he said.

For his part,Al Abbasi said: “Historically, the Arab world has played a vital role in being the central hub of the global trade, connecting the Asian and European markets. Today, through our flagship Jebel Ali Port and Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), we continue to lead the internal trade market through full adoption of modern technologies and enhancing the logistic services to be mostly automated and increase its efficiency.”

“Our Strategy to utilise Blockchain technology is in line with the UAE government efforts in supporting the digitalisation in the logistic operational system. We are witnessing more transparency and less human intervention in the current logistic operations, and we will continue to fully adopt the technological advancement to enrich our services to increase its competitive advantages,” he added.

GBF ASEAN is the newest addition to Dubai Chamber’s Global Business Forum series, which also includes GBF Africa and GBF Latin America. The inaugural GBF ASEAN, which concludes today (Thursday, December 9^th) is the second of three Global Business Forums that are taking place in conjunction with Expo 2020 Dubai, for which Dubai Chambers is the Official Business Integration Partner.