JAKARTA, Feb 7 (AFP) - Indonesia and Turkey pledged Monday to boost economic ties, with plans to push bilateral trade to two billion dollars in three years.
Visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there was a big window of opportunity to boost bilateral trade, which currently stood at around 300 million dollars annually.
"We hope that we can increase bilateral trade to around two billion dollars in three years," he told a joint press conference after talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the state palace.
Yudhoyono said plans for a bilateral committee on technical and economic cooperation would be revived, and the government would push the private sector to set up an Indonesia-Turkey business council.
"We feel that in our economic relations, even though the potentials are good, trade is still relatively low," he said.
According to official figures, two-way trade for the first nine months last year was only 268.79 million dollars, largely in favor of Indonesia.
Erdogan, who left later Monday for Kuala Lumpur, was here on a working tour of countries hit by the December 26 tsunamis which left nearly 300,000 people believed dead.
He made a brief visit Sunday to Indonesia's Aceh province, the area worst hit by the tsunami, where he offered to build at least 1,000 homes for survivors.
02/07/2005 12:31 GMT - AFP