Jakarta – Business relationships between Indonesia and Australia will remain strong despite the recent wire tapping incidents, a senior official says.

"The [wire tapping] issue is political. Economic and business issues should be separated," Deputy Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said as quoted by Kontan.co.id on Tuesday.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. and The Guardian reported on Monday that they had documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that showed the agency had wiretapped the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and several ministers.

The documents reportedly showed that the Australian Defense Signals Directorate, now the top-secret Australian Signals Directorate, had attempted to listen to the president's phone conversations on at least one occasion and tracked activity on the phone for 15 days in August 2009.