An Indonesian senior official said that Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to take measures in increasing bilateral trade, including by increasing trade across mutual border areas and encouraging bilateral investment, local media reported here Tuesday.
Speaking after a meeting with a senior Malaysian official here on Monday, Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said that by opening more trade routes in border areas, the bilateral trade could be increased to at least 15 billion U.S. dollars this year.
She said that the total bilateral trade value, which last year fell to 12.5 billion U.S. dollars, has bounced back over the past several months. From January to May, the bilateral trade rose about 90 percent to 7.1 billion U.S. dollars from 3.7 billion U.S. dollars in the same period last year.
"Given this positive trend, we hope we can reach the peak recorded in 2008 when the two-way trade reached 15.3 billion dollars," Mari was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying after her meeting with Malaysian Trade and Industry Minister Dato' Sri Mustapha Muhammad here.
Manufactured goods were the largest exports to Malaysia last year, reaching 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, followed by minerals with 1.3 billion and vegetable oils with 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.
Mari said the meeting with her counterpart had also sought to encounter bilateral investment.
From 2004 to 2009, Malaysia invested 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in Indonesia, the second largest country-to-country investment among Southeast Asia countries that year.
Most of the investments went to plantations, telecommunication, banking and oil and gas sectors./.