He made the statement at an "Indonesia-Pakistan Joint Business Dialogue" here on Monday.
Before around 200 attendees from business communities in the two countries Burhan said the implementation of PTA would benefit both countries.
"It would open bigger opportunities for the two countries," he added.
Indonesia and Pakistan signed the agreement on February 3, 2012, following negotiations since 2002.
With the PTA it is hoped trade between the two countries would increase in volume and more opportunities would be opened for Pakistani businessmen to enter ASEAN markets.
Through the agreement Indonesia offers cuts up to zero percent in import duties for 220 commodities from Pakistan and in exchange Pakistani import tax reductions for 311 commodities from Indonesia.
Pakistan however has not yet implemented the agreement among other things because one of its commodities namely `Kino` orange still has difficulties entering Indonesia.
"Actually it is easy to implement the PTA," Burhan said.
During the dialog Pakistani businessmen have raised questions about the Indonesian government`s policy to close the Jakarta port of Tanjung Priok for horticultural imports and move it to Tanjung Perak in Surabaya, East Java.
They also questioned about the Indonesian import quota policy for agricultural products they considered one of the obstacles for the Kino orange to enter the country.
In response ambassador Burhan said he could understand their concern because Kino orange is their pride commodity.
However he said if the implementation continued to be delayed it would only hurt the two countries especially their business communities.
Due to the delay he said trade between the two countries in the first semester this year dropped.
"We expect the agreement to be able to be implemented this year," he said.
In 2012 trade between the two countries reached US$1.6 billion. If the PTA were implemented, he said, he believed the trade could surpass US$3 billion.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
