An Analysis of Indonesia's Trade Policy on the Sustainability of CPO Trade with Israel, 2020–2025
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Abstract
This study analyzes how Indonesia's trade policy explains the sustainability of crude palm oil (CPO) trade with Israel during the 2020–2025 period, a period in which the two countries did not have formal diplomatic relations. The study uses a qualitative descriptive approach based on documentary research, with bilateral HS 1511 trade data from ITC Trade Map as the main source and UN Comtrade as a comparison, together with Indonesia's CPO export regulations as the main documents of analysis. The data were analyzed through regulatory content analysis, bilateral trade trend analysis, and conceptual analysis based on the analytical lens of country-neutral and asymmetric economic interdependence. The results show that Indonesia's CPO exports to Israel took place every year throughout the study period, moving from USD 16.89 million in 2020 to a peak of USD 30.77 million in 2022 before easing to USD 21.59 million in 2025. Content analysis of the Export Duty, plantation fund levy, and Reference Price/Export Benchmark Price regulations found no provisions that differentiate destination countries or make diplomatic-relations status a basis for policy. Indonesia supplied an average of 71.1 percent of Israel's total CPO imports during the study period, while the Israeli market accounted for less than 0.12 percent of Indonesia's total CPO exports. Israel's dependence is relatively high in terms of sensitivity, but not absolute in terms of vulnerability because Israel has alternative suppliers, including Singapore, Greece, and Malaysia. These findings indicate that the country-neutral, combined with asymmetric economic interdependence that favors Indonesia's bargaining position, helps explain the sustainability of Indonesia-Israel CPO trade amid the two countries' limited formal political relations.
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