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ndonesian tourists are soon to be able to visit Brazil without a visa for a 30-day stay in the country and Brazilians would be able to come here on the same terms.

The arrangement was agreed to during a meeting between Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and her counterpart Aloysio Nunes Ferreira in Bogor, West Java, on Friday. The exemption is expected to intensify interaction between the people of the two countries and foster more business opportunities, said Retno.

“We agreed to intensify our engagement […] to promote trade and investment and also tourism between the two countries,” she said after the meeting. “In the meeting, we exchanged a memorandum on visa exemptions for regular passport holders.”

The two ministers also signed an agreement on visa exemptions for holders of diplomatic and service passports, she added. The visa exemptions will come into force in mid-June, 30 days after the signing.

Tourism Ministry data shows that Indonesia has hosted an increasing number of Brazilian tourists since 2014. The number of Brazilian tourists was 28,359 in 2017, higher than the 20,992 in 2016 and the 20,825 in 2015.

“In fact, Brazil is the largest tourist contributor from Latin America and the Caribbean,” the Foreign Ministry’s director general for American and European affairs, Muhammad Anshor, said, adding that most Brazilian tourists went to Bali.

Muhammad said he does not know how many Indonesians visit Brazil annually, but there were 352 Indonesians in Brazil in March 2018.

“We have been trying to keep the number increasing by enabling family trips, as well as by pushing tour operators of both countries to cooperate together,” said Anshor.

He said that with the agreement, Brazil would join 169 other countries that can enjoy Indonesia visa free.

In the Americas and Europe, only Belarus and Brazil have agreed to provide Indonesians reciprocal visa-free arrangements, Anshor added.

“However, we still have work to finish: That is connectivity. We have no direct flights to Brazil yet,” said Anshor.

He said that to reach Brazil, Indonesians had to fly through Australia or the Netherlands. While tourism had shown progress, trade between Indonesia and Brazil had been declining, Anshor said.

Data from the Trade Ministry showed trade had decreased by 4.5 percent and the two countries booked their lowest trade balance in 2017. Trade between them was worth US$3.1 billion in 2017, slumping from $3.5 billion in 2016 and $3.6 billion in 2015. The highest was $4.05 billion in 2014.

To reverse the trend, both countries agreed to revitalize their strategic partnership, which was established in 2008 and is the only one Indonesia has with a Latin American country, through technical cooperation, Retno said.

One obstacle is a language barrier as the Portuguese business forms hinder Indonesian businesses from expanding to the country.