Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia and Uzbekistan are ready to launch negotiations on the preferential trade agreement (IU-PTA).

Indonesian Trade Minister Budi Santoso said the IU-PTA can be an opportunity for Indonesia to expand its market, considering that Uzbekistan has the largest population in the Central Asian region of 36𓆏.5 million and is a non-traditional trading👍 partner of Indonesia.

The negotiations are part of the concrete steps of the Ministry of Trade’s priority programme to expand the export market, Santoso said after a meeting with Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov on February 11.

At the meeting, he also encouraged Uzbekistan to immediately form the Joint Working Gro🎉up (JWG) on Indone🅰sia-Uzbekistan Trade and Investment.

In addition, Santoso expressed support for Uzbekistan’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Indonesia and Uzbekistan have completed negotiations on market access for goods and services within the framework of the accession. The minister also encouraged the technical teams of the two countries to immediately complete discussions on the procedures and timing for the signing of the Indonesia-Uzbekistan agreement protocol on goods and services within the framework of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO. In the 2019–2023 period, trade between the two countries grew by over 49%. In 2024, the total trade between the two countries reached 147.6 million USD, up 4.67% from 141.1 million USD in the previous year. During this period, Indonesia's exports to Uzbekistan were recorded at 25.8 million USD, while imports from Uzbekistan stood at 121.9 million USD. Indonesia’s main exports include margarine, animal or vegetable fats and oils, electrical machinery and apparatus, other margarine, and instant coffee, while imports from Uzbekistan include potassium chloride, cotton linter pulp, fuel pumps, motor vehicle level gauges, and disodium carbonate./.