Indonesia appeals to South Africa to soften regulations to boost trade

Indonesia’s foreign affairs department director-general Daniel Simanjuntak has appealed to South Africa to loosen its regulations to allow the two countries to increase trade.
Simanjuntak at a briefing in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, said Indonesia was not included on the list of countries that are offered free visas from South Africa.
Among the issues that the Indonesian government has highlighted as a barrier to trade is the high tariffs for goods from Indonesia imported into South Africa.
Simanjuntak said the country – with a population of 264 million spanning three time zones and including more than 17 000 islands – wanted to increase its trade with South Africa.
Indonesia’s largest trade partner in Africa is Nigeria; South Africa is second.
“With South Africa we want to see more. Brazil is far away and it has more trade with Indonesia compared with South Africa.
“We are not happy yet with trade with South Africa,” he said, adding that the Asian country wants more.
He pointed out that South Africa was the only African state with which Indonesia had a strategic partnership in sub-Saharan Africa.
The relations at a political level were good but this had not translated into better trade relations, Simanjuntak said.
The country hopes to attract more trade when it hosts the Indonesia-African Infrastructure Dialogue next year in August.
It hopes the dialogue will be a forum to strengthen Indonesia-Africa cooperation in the infrastructure sector.
“We are looking forward to having infrastructure cooperation with South Africa and to establishing a preferential trade agreement [PTA]. The establishment of a PTA with the SA Customs Union, of which South Africa is part, will boost the trade between the two countries to full potential, lessening restrictions and barriers,” he said.
Source: City press