Indonesia and Australian complete 7th economic partnership round
Indonesia Expat | 29 May 2017
Indonesia and Australian complete 7th economic partnership round
by Oliviana Handayani
The seventh round of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA CEPA) last week saw a recommitment to cooperation between the two countries.
The IA CEPA will eventually see a tighter partnership hoped to increase business ties and see an embracing of other developing markets.
“We will continue to make the principle more robust and discuss further regarding the details of the cooperation programmes under the Economic Cooperation Chapter,” Deddy Saleh, a representative of the Indonesian delegate at the partnership forum, said.
Saleh said that, during the seventh round of IA CEPA, Indonesia and Australia produced fruitful and positive discussion and both countries are optimistic the rounds will be complete by the end of the year.
The main issues discussed during the round included trade — including the origin of goods, customs procedures and trade facilitations — investment, electronic trade, business competition and institutional framework provisions.
Both countries agreed to an element which will serve as the basic concept of the Economic Cooperation text, valuable progress from the round.
The Economic Cooperation is an integral part to negotiations which distinguish IA CEPA with other free trade agreements (FTAs). While most FTAs deal only with market accesses, the IA CEPA agreement will dedicate a special chapter to Economic Cooperation.
“With this [the Economic Cooperation Chapter], Indonesia can gain more positive benefits with the partner country,” Saleh said.
The round also saw success in a thorough discussion about the text agreement with both countries expecting further steps toward completing the whole cooperation agreement.
“If in the previous round we were still on the level of sharing respective thoughts on the matters, in this round, the discussion is getting more conical and focusin about the agreement text content and negotiations about the market access,” added Saleh.
This type of economic partnership has long been touted as further fostering bilateral relations and encouraging international business between the two.
