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Category: Trade / International Aid and Trade / Business, Economics and Finance

Australia, Indonesia eye trade deal in '12 to 18 months'

Wednesday, 16 Mar 2016 15:31:53

Steven Ciobo and Thomas Lembong will look to achieve "early outcomes" in education and horticulture (AAP: Mick Tsikas)

Australia and Indonesia have set their sights on clinching a bilateral trade deal within 18 months.

After almost four years of stalled talks, the trade ministers of both countries, Steven Ciobo and Thomas Lembong, have formally "reactivated" negotiations during a meeting in Canberra.

"We want to ensure there are some ideally early outcomes we are able to secure in the short term with a view to securing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) somewhere over the next 12 to 18 months," Mr Ciobo said.

Australia and Indonesia will look to achieve "early outcomes" in education, horticulture, design, agriculture, food processing and professional and financial services.

But, aware of pitfalls in past negotiations, Mr Lembong has left way open to excluding traditionally difficult talks on cattle.

"Sometimes maybe we need to call time out on the most contentious issues and work on areas where we can more easily find common ground," he said.

"Personally my priority is to try to broaden the dialogue so we don't get bogged down on old issues of contention — in no way am I belittling the cattle trade."

Despite ambitions of successive governments, Indonesia still lags as Australia's 12th largest trading partner, but Mr Ciobo said the economic relationship has been "underdone" and "it should be higher".

Mr Lembong has highlighted "celebrity chefs" and fashion as Australian services the archipelago of 230 million people would like to develop.

"We've already got celebrity chefs coming out of Australia. I pointed out in discussions today, [it's] not for nothing Indonesia used to be called the spice islands - is this going to be a huge GDP contributor?

"Perhaps not. But it can put a nice tone to the overarching ambience around our trade discussions."

Trade negotiators will start their talks in May.

AustraliaPlus


 

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