Indonesia has abundant natural wealth with extraordinary agricultural potential. It is no secret that the agricultural sector is one of the sectors that have an important role in Indonesia. As an agrarian country, the agricultural sector is able to provide the largest contribution along with the manufacturing sector as well as large and retail trade to the value of Indonesia's GDP (as seen in Table 1). The export value of agricultural products also helped stabilize Indonesia's trade balance. The increase in the value of agricultural exports mainly occurred in strategic commodities of plantations and livestock. If it is accumulated, total exports over the past four years have reached Rp 1,764 trillion.

Table 1. Indonesian Export Value by Sector (Million USD) and Changes (%) January - April 2019 (Source: Statistics Indonesia, 2019)

Indonesia has abundant natural wealth with extraordinary agricultural potential. It is no secret that the agricultural sector is one of the sectors that have an important role in Indonesia. As an agrarian country, the agricultural sector is able to provide the largest contribution along with the manufacturing sector as well as large and retail trade to the value of Indonesia's GDP (as seen in Table 1). The export value of agricultural products also helped stabilize Indonesia's trade balance. The increase in the value of agricultural exports mainly occurred in strategic commodities of plantations and livestock. If it is accumulated, total exports over the past four years have reached Rp 1,764 trillion.

In 2019 different conditions were found where based on the latest data from the Central Statistics Agency, the export value of agricultural products in April 2019 decreased by 6.78% when compared to March 2019 (month to month) and decreased by 15.88% when compared by April 2018 (year to year). The decline in the value of exports can be caused by several things, one of which is a slowdown in the global economy in which the three main export destination countries of Indonesia, namely the United States, China, and Japan are both experiencing an economic slowdown. In addition, the decline was also believed to have been caused by domestic political turmoil that affected export-related policies taken.

Chairperson of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Hariyadi B. Sukamdani said, in 2019 the biggest challenge arises from the potential for the continuing trade war between the United States (US) and China. That will cause disruption to the global supply chain which ultimately disrupts the performance of national exports.

One way that can be done to deal with this is through market penetration or looking for the new potential market as an alternative for national agricultural export products. According to Deputy Chairman of the International Relations Division of the Indonesian Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Shinta W, the non-oil and gas export markets that need to be supported are South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The targeted increase in exports must be accompanied by the availability and continuity of raw materials. The government is expected to provide assistance and intensification to optimize the production of related agricultural products. This requires the support of every stakeholder involved in the export process from upstream to downstream. Collaboration with entrepreneurs and exporters also needs to be improved.

By facilitating the process of cooperation and investment, it is expected to be able to increase export or trade activities which will ultimately help the growth of exports of agricultural products nationally. Considering the large export potential of Indonesian agricultural products, it would be a shame if improvements were not made immediately in the face of existing challenges, improvements are certainly needed so that the value of Indonesian exports, especially for agricultural products, can be stable and not continue to decline throughout 2019.

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