DAYA SAING EKSPOR PRODUK MAKANAN OLAHAN INDONESIA KE TIMUR TENGAH

The objectives of this study are to analyze the competitiveness of Indonesian processed food exports in the ten Middle East countries and formulate recommendations to increase Indonesia's processed food exports to those countries. The data used in this study was secondary data and estimated by using dynamic RCA method. By using the dynamic RCA method, it was found that the position of the competitiveness of processed food products in the Lagging Opportunity and Lost Opportunity categories have potential to be increased as exports products to the Middle East. These processed products are soft drinks, snacks and other processed foods. The processed food products export to the Middle East can be increased by: a) encouraging Indonesia's Trade Representatives (Trade Attaches and ITPC) to facilitate doing business between Indonesia and Middle East, b) coordinating domestic and foreign stakeholders to obtain export-oriented food safety certification, c) accelerating the establishment of trade agreements to expand market access through reduced tariffs on imported processed foods from Indonesia, d) increasing competitiveness of export products by providing training and assistance to SME exporters including design and packaging, and e) Negotiating to simplify export documents process at affordable costs.