Indonesia, Serbia agree to boost trade, efforts to fight terrorism

Indonesia and Serbia agreed on Wednesday to increase trade volume and investment, and reaffirm their commitment to step up measures in combating terrorism.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Nikolic stressed the importance of creating balanced and sustainable two-way trade cooperation by promoting greater diversification of products and widening market access.

"The bilateral trade has risen 85 percent in the last five years. Indonesia expects market access for our products to be expanded, and tariff and non-tariff barriers for our products to be reduced or removed," President Widodo told a joint press conference.

For his part, President Nicolic said his country strove to widen market access for Indonesia's products in Europe.

"We are very interest in purchase of semi-finished products from Indonesia, which will be finished in Serbia for the European market," he said.

Both leaders also called for concerted efforts to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution on counter-terrorism.

Indonesia, which was targeted by Islamic State in a suicide bombing and gun attack in Jakarta in January, has been struggling to fight the group's militants in the country.