News Room - Business/Economics

Posted on 27 Jun 2008

Japan to cut import duties on 80 pct tariff posts for Indonesia

Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - The Japanese government will cut its import duties on 80 percent of tariff posts of goods from Indonesia beginning July 1, 2008, as part of the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the two countries, Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said.

"We hope that will enjoy the benefits of the program within the next 12 months. The import duties on about 80 percent of tariff posts of goods from Indonesia will become automatically zero," the minister said here on Thursday.

She said all of Indonesia`s main export commodities were included in the tariff posts to be given the zero percent import duty facility.

Among Indonesia`s commodities enjoying the zero import duty facility from Japan are textiles and textile products, footwear, plywood and fishery products such as shrimps.

In the meantime, Indonesia also reduced to zero percent its import duties on 58 tariff posts of commodities from Japan which would also be effective as of July 1.

She said Indonesia did not need to worry that the opening of its market for Japanese goods would threaten its local products.

"We should not worry too much about the flooding of Japanese goods in our market because goods from Japan will be more expensive than local products," the minister said.