VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian Embassy in Bratislava in Slovakia on June 24 held an annual Indonesia-Slovak business meeting with the theme "Business without Boundary: Expanding Market Access for Indonesian and Slovak Businessmen". This activity was the third meeting that aimed to build bridges between entrepreneurs from the two countries, particularly in the trade and investment sectors.

This year, a one-on-one business matching meeting was held in a hybrid manner between 6 Slovak and Indonesian entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs come from the food and beverages sector, such as canned food, coffee, tea, bio and halal products, defense equipment as well as the labor sector. From these six business matching meetings, 3 companies from Slovakia have agreed to follow up the results of this business matching in the near future. The implementation of this business matching is a follow-up to the Virtual Business Clinic activity organized by the Indonesian Embassy in Bratislava on June 9, 2021 for Indonesian MSME players to penetrate the Slovak market.

Indonesian Ambassador to Bratislava, Adiyatwidi Adiwoso said that "Slovakia is Indonesia's trading partner in the Central European Region and has the potential to become Indonesia's market hub in the Central and Eastern Europe Region. On one hand, geographically, Slovakia has a very strategic location because it is in “The Heart of Europe.” On the other hand, Indonesia can become the hub of the Slovak market in the ASEAN and Pacific Regions. Although up to now there have been trade relations, it is seen that there is still opportunity to improve relations in several sectors, and to increase the number of trade.

This annual business meeting activity is also the beginning of the implementation of the Indonesia - Central Europe Countries (INA-CEE) Business Forum activities. The event will be held by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 14, 2021 in a hybrid manner, in order to improve economic relations between Indonesia - Central and Eastern Europe.

Director General of Economic Cooperation at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dusan Matulay as a key speaker from Slovakia appreciated this annual meeting. Even during the pandemic, trade between Indonesia and Slovakia is still relatively stable and Indonesia has a surplus. It was explained that Indonesia-Slovak cooperation could be developed in several sectors, such as information technology, medical devices, services, food (wheat), and others. According to Matulay, this kind of forum needs to be continuously supported by Slovak entrepreneurs.