12:15, 06 декабря 2022, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency , Tatyana KUDRYAVTSEVA
Minister for Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Andrey Slepnev and the Trade Minister of Indonesia Zulkifli Hasan signed a joint statement to launch negotiations on a free trade agreement. Press service of the EEC reported.
The document, in particular, fixes an agreement to hold the first round of negotiations in the first quarter of next year.
«The Eurasian Economic Union attaches great importance to the development of mutually beneficial cooperation with Indonesia, which is one of our main trading partners in ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. It is necessary to use the remaining untapped potential: as the study showed, the liberalization of the terms of trade can increase trade by $1.5 billion,» Andrey Slepnev said.
According to him, there are prospects both for agricultural products, which traditionally make up the majority of the Union’s imports from Indonesia, and for an industrial group that is actively traded in both directions.
«As one of the platforms where we could further discuss the prospects for deepening cooperation, we propose organizing a bilateral business dialogue within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Forum in the spring of 2023,» the EEC Minister for Trade suggested.
In January-September 2022, the trade turnover between the EAEU and Indonesia increased by 48.4 percent compared to the same period in 2021. At the same time, exports increased by more than 2.5 times, while imports added about 16 percent.