Jakarta: Majority of the people of Switzerland have voted to proceed with a free trade agreement with Indonesia in a referendum on Sunday, marking another milestone in the two nations’ long-standing relationship.
Business association the Swiss-Indonesian Chamber of Commerce (SwissCham Indonesia) welcomes the positive outcome, noting that it provides a step forward to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries.
"This outcome signals the desire of the Swiss people to have a stronger bond with Indonesia. We are looking forward to continue strengthening the ties and seek new collaboration opportunities between Indonesia and Switzerland businesses following this astounding development," Chairman of SwissCham Indonesia, Chris Bendl said in a press release on Sunday.
The Indonesia-Switzerland free trade deal is part of the Indonesia-European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IE-CEPA), concluded on December 16, 2018.
The EFTA is an intergovernmental organization to promote free trade and economic integration for the benefit of its member countries, namely Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland.
The IE-CEPA aims to substantially improve market access by removing trade barriers on both sides. In addition to trade, the wide range of the agreement opened up prospects for more business-to-business cooperations in the tourism, SMEs, cocoa and palm oil, vocational education, maritime industry, and fishery sectors, while promoting protection of intellectual property rights.
In the meantime, Bendl said that SwissCham Indonesia closely follows and respects the ongoing mechanism to ratify the trade deal at the House of Representatives (DPR).
A similar process is currently underway in Liechtenstein while Norway and Iceland had ratified the IE-CEPA in December 2019 and January 2020, respectively.
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