Indonesia expresses interest in new Shanghai FTZ

Indonesia's government will explore options of doing business with Shanghai's newly opened experimental free trade zone and will attempt to link it to similar ventures at home, an official said on Sunday.

Responding to media questions on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings on promoting sustainable development, Indonesia's Tourism Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said that the new free trade zone has economic potential for both countries.

"Connecting Indonesian Free Trade Zones with the newly opened Shanghai zone will be positive for economic engagement between the two countries and I think it will be a good learning process as well," she said.

Linking it to sustainable development, she hoped that the Shanghai zone would have green infrastructure and operate on sustainable measures.

China's experimental free trade zone opened last week in a bid to test financial changes that the government said could eventually spread to other parts of the country.

The new zone, which has the backing of the State Council, the Chinese cabinet, was first announced last July.

It is expected to allow banks and other businesses within its boundaries to experiment in areas that are controlled in China, including loosening regulation of interest rates and full convertibility of nation's currency, the renminbi.

Indonesia and China have stepped up their investment ahead of the APEC summit with companies from both countries signing 28 billion U.S. dollars' worth of investment deals during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Last year trade between the two nations topped 52 billion U.S. dollars.