Indonesia is optimistic that the free trade with Japan would begin next year, an Indonesian official said Monday.

Halida Miljani, a senior official of the Indonesian Trade Ministry told reporters that both the governments of Indonesia and Japan had three months to settle internal process in dealing with the agreement.

Miljani said that the Indonesian government is making rules in dealing with tariffs of some commodities, while the Japanese government must bring the agreement to the parliament for ratification.

The free trade agreement was signed by the two countries last month.

Under the agreement, Japan would eliminate more than 90 percentof its import tariffs on 9,275 items from Indonesia that are valued at about 99 percent of Indonesia's total export.

In addition, Japan will help Indonesia improve the quality of Indonesia's products to meet the standards of the Japanese or international markets.

Japan is the largest investor in Indonesia with total investment of 6.77 billion U.S. dollars from 1988 to 2006.

Japan will help Indonesia in its effort to reform the economy and improving investment climate.

Indonesia's new efforts led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in combating rampant corruption have been criticized for discrimination, but his recent move of appointing a new attorney general has brought a hope to the efforts.