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RI-Vietnam strengthen food security cooperation as climate, conflicts disrupt supplies
The unusual climate patterns combined with geopolitical challenges have disrupted global food supplies. Indonesian rice imports spiked this year after the global price for the commodity set a 15-year record high.
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Cutting losses: A farmer saves rice seedlings as a flood submerges his paddy field in Cawas district, Klaten regency, Central Java, on Jan. 20, 2024. The flooding caused farmers to postpone rice planting. (Antara/Aloysius Jarot Nugroho)
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oreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi reaffirmed the need for Indonesia and Vietnam to strengthen bilateral ties amid increasing security threats and economic stresses posed by the United States-China rivalry and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, among other global issues.
Retno specifically highlighted the need to strengthen cooperation in, but not limited to, food security as the unusual climate patterns combined with geopolitical challenges have disrupted world food supplies. Indonesian rice imports spiked this year after the global price for the commodity set a 15-year record high.
“Cooperation and discussions for an agreement in food security must be immediately started,” Retno said in a statement on Thursday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Retno led the Fifth Indonesia-Vietnam Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), a forum that seeks to discuss various bilateral, regional and global issues. The event coincided with the ASEAN Future Forum held in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi.
Paying a courtesy call to Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Retno welcomed a new agreement to set a bilateral trade value target of US$18 billion or more by 2028, paying key attention to cooperation in the food security sector. Previously, the target for the same year was set at $15 billion.
Data from 2023 from Vietnam’s General Customs Department record that bilateral trade between Hanoi and Jakarta amounted to almost $14 billion in 2023, with rice among Vietnam’s key exports.
Read also: Food, energy, economic resilience key to ASEAN security, says Indonesia
