RI, Chile sign investment pact

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas (right) and his Chilean counterpart, Jose Miguel Insulza (left), yesterday signed a joint declaration, marking the start of bilateral investment relations between the two countries.

In the declaration, both countries agreed on the importance of the private sector's involvement in development and the need to increase productivity, to accelerate transfer of technology and to step up economic relations.

Chile and Indonesia will, in the future, identify the specific fields of cooperation, exchange information concerning the business sector of each country, establish measures to anticipate conflicts which might occur in the future and follow up yesterday's declaration with the signing of a treaty on promotion and protection of investment.

"We have gone one step further but we still have a lot to do in the fields of trade and investment," Insulza said.

He said cooperation in the near future would most probably be in the field of telecommunications.

Chile, which made its debut in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum at the ministerial meeting yesterday, presently records no investments in Indonesia.

"We are still unfamiliar with each other's economy but both being in the APEC forum, we hope to increase cooperation," Alatas said.

Chile's main trading partners include the United States, Japan and Brazil. (pwn)

JP/arh