resident Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, discussed on Friday progress on the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

The two leaders were in a meeting for approximately one hour starting at 8:30 a.m. local time at the Steigenberger hotel in the port city of Hamburg, Germany.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said the two countries reaffirmed their commitment to completing the IA-CEPA by the end of the year. "It is important that the two leaders continue to push for the completion of the negotiations by the end of 2017," she said after the meeting.

Indonesia and Australia have had seven rounds of negotiations on the IA-CEPA, which is based on the existing ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free-trade agreement (AANZ FTA) and will rule out tariffs for 10,012 types of goods.

Bilateral trade between Indonesia and Australia has decreased over the past few years. It dropped to US$8.46 billion last year from $10.2 billion in 2012, down by 4.63 percent on average per year, according to data from the Trade Ministry.

Apart from Australia, Jokowi is also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday. The President was initially scheduled to meet with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, but that bilateral meeting was moved to Saturday morning. (ags)

Popular

Purbaya’s thankless task

At least nine killed, two missing in Bali's worst flooding in years

Lake Toba retains UNESCO Global Geopark status after warning