JAKARTA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian commerce and industry chamber (KADIN) asked government to review the country's bilateral trade pact with Japan, called Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (IJEPA), a statement released by KADIN said here on Wednesday.
The KADIN learned that Indonesia now suffers 825 million U.S. dollars deficit in its bilateral trade with Japan under the IJEPA program that took into effect in 2008.
It also learned that at the same time, Japan's exports to Indonesia stood at 2.21 billion U.S. dollars, while its imports from Indonesia stood at 1.38 billion U.S. dollars.
"KADIN agreed on efforts to review the terms in the pact until balance of trade between the two countries is reached," KADIN Deputy Head for Trade, Distribution and Logistics Affairs Natsir Mansyur said in the statement.
Natsir said that Japan has become the advantaged party in the IJEPA pact as it enjoys export duty to zero percent when they export products to Indonesia.
On the other hand, the KADIN also called on the government to reorganize implementation of duties in several products affected by the bilateral trade at home, among others unequal duties on automotive parts applied to general and producer importers.
The KADIN said that under the IJEPA regime, Indonesian automotive producers were given import duties to zero percent when they import auto parts, but at the same time, general importers were charged to pay up to 40 percent of import duties for the same products from Japan.
"There should not be discrimination in the bilateral trade pact," Natsir said.
