Indonesia's business associations asked the government to delay the implementation of ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) in the country scheduled to take in to effect on June 1 this year due to various reasons, local media reported on Wednesday.

Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) Chairman Sofyan Wanandi said that all trade cooperation, including the AIFTA, should be delayed so as to give national industry chance to develop and improve its condition amid the uncompetitive restraints in some of its sectors.

Even realizing that the AIFTA would benefit some sectors, Sofyan pointed out the need to scrutinize the agreement schemes and undertake further study in a bid to avoid losses that would possibly be suffered by domestic industry.

"We should be talking about the long term, not only the short term goals. So we have to be really careful in scrutinizing all the FTA we are about to set up with," Sofyan was quoted by the Bisnis Indonesia daily as saying.

Meanwhile, Indonesia plastic and olefin producer association ( Inaplas) deputy chairman Budi Susanto Sadiman said that the implementation of AIFTA may threat domestic petrochemical industry since production of India's petrochemical industry has reached 10 million ton per annum, while Indonesia is at 2 million ton per annum.