REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -  Indonesia has not made a full assessment of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Minister of Trade, Gita Wirjawan, said TPP was not Indonesian priority.

"We will study any benefits generated from the partnership," Wirjawan said on Wednesday.

TPP is nine-country forum between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, US, and Vietnam with combined gross domestic product of 17 trillion USD dominated by the US.

Director General for International Trade Cooperation at the Ministry of Trade, Imam Pambagyo, said that he still observed the partnership. "We have not decided yet," Pambagyo said.

He explained that by joining this partnership that involved the market of 500 million people Indonesia could get benefit from US market, however as a consequence, Indonesia must lower trade tariff and open service trade sector. He added that Indonesia was more interested in joining FTA with Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Chairman of Indonesian Textile Association (API), Ade Sudrajat, said Indonesia would have an opportunity to increase textile export to the US and Latin America should the country join TPP. He cited that Vietnam textile export to the US jumped from number 82 to 2. He predicted that Indonesian textile export to the US could increase by 10-15 percent if only Indonesia joined TPP.

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