Event Reports

On 29 June 2021, EuroCham held a virtual meeting with representatives of the Jakarta Japan Club (JJC). This meeting seeks to introduce the activities of the EuroCham Automotive Working Group to the JJC Automotive Working Group. The intention of this introductory meeting is to explore possibilities for the two organizations to work together in future. This meeting was attended by the Head of EuroCham Automotive Working Group, Daniel Purba, and a Member of the JJC Executive Board that represented the Automotive Sector, Tanaka Masamichi. Both sides introduced each organization’s activities in the Automotive Sector, and were committed to maintain open communications to jointly address common challenges in the automotive industry.

On 22 June, a taskforce within the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology Working Group had a meeting to discuss advocacy steps to be taken on recent plan by the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment as mentioned by a press release dated 15 June 2021 to increase the Use of Domestic Products in the Medical Device Sector. The Working Group acknowledged that there are 79 medical device product groups covering 5,462 imported products that will be delisted from the e-catalogue. In order to defer delisting imported medical device products on the e-catalog, EuroCham together with other associations (American Chamber, Indonesia Canada Chamber, and US-ASEAN Business Council) worked to develop an advocacy strategy to address medical device industry’s concerns.

The advocacy is conducted by conveying concerns as stated in the joint letter containing these matters, namely Consideration to Defer Delisting Imported Medical Device Products on e-Catalogue, Exclusion of Specialized Products from the Substitution list and Re-Visit the 5,462 Imported Products, and Enhancing Medical Device Manufacturing and Investment. The Joint Letter was addressed to Luhut B. Pandjaitan, The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment on 24 June 2021. There are great hopes that the Government will consider longer term implications of a shift towards a pure focus on local capability; will build provision that supports transparency, clarity for and engagement with industry, a shift towards simplification of processes and an appropriate focus on incremental value assessments for imported medical devices.