Australian businesses are keen to explore business opportunities with their Indonesian counterparts, as reflected in a bilateral business conference that is currently ongoing.

Visiting Australian Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb said the timing was right for a closer trade relationship and broader cooperation between the neighboring countries.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Indonesia Australia Business Council (IABC) conference in Yogyakarta, Robb said his view was based on the level of development in Australia and in countries around Australia, particularly in Indonesia.

It was for that reason that during his official visit to Indonesia this week, he brought with him 360 Australian businesspeople for the Indonesia Australia Business Week held in Jakarta until this Friday, Robb said at a ceremony for the publication of a report called '€œSucceeding Together'€ on shared opportunities between Indonesia and Australia.

'€œThey actually brought themselves. We created the opportunity. They nominated themselves. We could not accommodate any more than 360 of them,'€ Robb added.

Providing another example of Australians'€™ interest in Indonesia, he said that in the Australian government'€™s New Colombo Plan scholarship program aimed at helping Australian students go to one of 37 countries, a big number of them chose Indonesia.

During the two-day IABC conference, participants raised the question why the commercial relationship between Indonesia and Australia was relatively stagnant, despite the two countries being neighbors and having complimentary economies.

Responding, Robb said that a lot of the areas that both countries had been looking for in one another for the last 15-20 years were focused on developing resources and energy projects, where they were competing.

Hence, in terms of commercial opportunities, the two countries needed to expand beyond resources and energy, he added, citing services among the most promising sectors.

Services account for around 70 percent of Australia'€™s exports and 75 percent of the country'€™s gross domestic product (GDP), according to Robb.

If combined with the huge developments in Indonesia and other countries in the region where services had not yet been well developed, he said, these could create enormous opportunities.

'€œSo, we can make a contribution to that,'€ he added.

Meanwhile, Indonesia'€™s involvement in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which will launch at the turn of the year, attracts Australia, as the regional grouping will create the world'€™s seventh-largest economic bloc with a combined GDP of about US$2.5 trillion.

'€œThe combined AEC economies make the AEC our second-largest trading partner,'€ Australian Ambassador to ASEAN Simon Merrifield told the forum.

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