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recent World Trade Organization (WTO) review meeting on Indonesia's trade policies recommends that the government must improve key policies and practices in several areas to fulfill its international commitments.

Speaking at the end of the WTO's sixth Trade Policy Review of Indonesia, chairman Joakim Reiter said that participants expected Indonesia to implement trade and investment measures consistent with global trading rules.

'Members strongly encourage Indonesia to make more and better use of trade and investment policies that comply with its international commitments, and that are supportive of the multilateral trading system and better reflect Indonesia's ambition to have a leading role on the global stage,' Reiter said in his closing remarks on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, according to a WTO statement.

Indonesia received more than 750 questions that comprised 575 written questions submitted by 26 countries before the deadline and nearly 200 questions from 34 members during the two-day review, which every WTO member must undergo periodically.

China, for comparison, received 1,720 written questions during its last policy assessment in 2012.

Members urged Indonesia to, among other things, reevaluate measures considered 'trade-
restrictive', including import licensing and permit requirements covering 20 percent of overall tariff lines, and other measures, such as restrictions on import entry points, pre-shipment inspection requirements and export taxes that disrupted access to the domestic markets, Reiter said.

The government has also shown a lack of consultation and transparency in introducing various trade-related measures, according to the review panel, which said that Indonesia should notify its trading partners before implementing regulations that might have a substantial effect, Reiter said.

The US representative was the most vociferous critics of Indonesia. US ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke said that he was concerned about what he said was Indonesian 'economic nationalism and protectionism', as reflected in recent trade and investment regulations, such as import licensing requirements, trading rights limitations, foreign equity restrictions and domestic manufacturing requirements.

Other WTO members acknowledged the steady economic progress of Indonesia, Asia's fifth-largest economy, since 2007 when the last review was conducted, noting that the nation has played an increasingly important role on the global economic stage.

Deputy Trade Minister Bayu Krisnamurthi, who led Indonesia's delegation to the review meeting, said on Sunday that the government welcomed the recommendations and would try its best to initiate necessary changes.

'Some countries want us to issue simple, transparent and predictable regulations, and that's what we aim to do. We also view this as something positive for our own interests,' he told The Jakarta Post.

However, Bayu said that the government would continue to consider the interests of domestic businesses, despite foreign requests that it revise its trade rules to provide freer market access for foreign goods and services.