RI asked to establish FTA with Chile soon: envoy

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia is expected to establish a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Chile soon, an envoy said.

"The establishment of an FTA between Chile and Indonesia has not been realized as Indonesia still needs to conduct a consolidation with stakeholders and business enterprises in Indonesia. But we expect it would be established soon," Aloysius Lele Madja, Indonesian Ambassador to Chile said here on a round table discussion on bilateral relations between Indonesia and Chile on Wednesday.

Chile is now facing difficulties in supplying overwhelming demands from its trading partners, Madja said, adding that Chileans are also fed up with Chinese products which are abundant in their country.

"Chile is also depending on imported goods to supply its domestic demand. Therefore, Indonesia should harness this situation as the country has been supplying Chile with many products," Madja said.

According to him, the Chilean government also asked for immediate and positive response for the negotiations of the establishment of the FTA between the two countries.

"However, some people might be inconvenient with the FTA term. We can use other term such as comprehensive partnership instead of FTA," he said.

Moreover, Chile has become a member of APEC since 1994 and continues to develop trade with Asia-Pacific countries.

Indonesia is expected to become a gate for Chile to enter the ASEAN market with cooperation with some South East Asian countries such as Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, and Thailand, Madja said.

Chile has a so-called business-to-business culture in trading. They are always straight to the point , Madja said, adding that this could become another advantage for the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) and Indonesian business enterprises to expand their business to Chile as well as to boost business cooperation between Indonesia and Chile.

According to Transparency International in 2010, Chile`s corruption perception index ranked 21th with a score of 7.2 of 200 countries worldwide.

"This means that Chile as a good place for business as the corruption level in the country is quite low," Madja said

Posted in: Business

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