Jakarta has proposed holding the meeting of the 4th Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) of Bangladesh Indonesia-Preferential Trade Agreement (BI-PTA) on May 16-19.
The trade ministry of Indonesia has requested the Bangladesh embassy in Jakarta to consider May 16-19 as the tentative schedule for the four-day meeting, to be held at Bandung, Indonesia, said a source.
Earlier, it was supposed to be held on 15-17 May.
Jakarta wants to conclude the signing of the proposed PTA with Dhaka within the next couple of months, according to a source.
"Indonesia has finalised its internal coordination to formulate a revised offer list for the negotiation of BI-PTA and it will be exchanged with Bangladesh's revised offer," said a previous letter of the Indonesian embassy, Dhaka.
To expedite the negotiations, Indonesia has already sent some documents to Bangladesh regarding the proposed BI-PTA agreement.
Jakarta is set to exchange its revised offer list of goods with an eye to forwarding the PTA negotiations, according to a senior official.
He hopes the proposed deal is expected to be signed by this calendar 2023 if Indonesia includes Bangladeshi RMG items in the revised list of products under the PTA.
The PTA signing is likely to take time for not considering inclusion of Bangladeshi apparel items in the Indonesian list of products, he said.
In September 2022, Dhaka sought a revised list of goods on which Jakarta could offer tariff concessions for Bangladeshi products before signing the proposed PTA, an official said.
Bilateral free-trade or preferential-trade pact is a matter of negotiations between two countries. No country does come forward if a deal goes against its interests, a trade source said.
Both Dhaka and Jakarta have already exchanged the lists of 300 products each.
The proposed PTA was due for signing in 2021 but delayed as Bangladeshi RMG products were in the list of 48 goods, an FTA wing official of the ministry said.
During the Jakarta tour in July 2022, foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen had talks with the Indonesian ministers of trade and industries.
Both sides reviewed the current state of bilateral trade and stressed concluding PTA this year marking the golden jubilee of the Dhaka-Jakarta diplomatic ties.
Mr Momen requested the Indonesian side to favourably consider inclusion of RMG items in the products' list under the PTA to address the trade gap between the two.
The volume of import-export trade between Bangladesh and Indonesia stood at $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2021-22, showing immense potential for further growth.
Indonesia is a large market for Bangladeshi medicines, agricultural products, poultry, jute and leather goods and footwear.
The volume of export was more than $78 million in the same fiscal year.
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