VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian government will boost cooperation of development with Guyana and other Caribbean countries. This was stated in press release of Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry in Jakarta on Saturday (19/5). The commitment has been delivered by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno LP Marsudi in her first official visit to Guyana and Secretariat of CARICOM (Caribbean Community) since diplomatic relations of the two countries were opened. To President Guyana, David Arthur Granger, Minister Retno said that trade value between Indonesia and Guyana has kept increasing over the last three years. But, the value is still small and is not reflecting the potential of both countries bilateral cooperation. In this regard, Minister Retno suggested that there are three priority areas of development cooperation of the two countries. Firstly, it is about economic cooperation and investment focusing in the sector of energy. Secondly, it’s about environmental cooperation and the third one is technical cooperation and capacity development. In the sector of environmental cooperation, Minister Retno pointed out that as country which also has wide forest, Indonesia can share experience to Guyana in sustainable forest management. In this regard, Minister Retno explained Indonesia’s experience in fighting against illegal logging and development of wood certification so that it can open market access widely in Europe.

The government of India is interested to invest in several sectors in Indonesia. This was stated by Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan related to his visit to India over the weekend. In official press release on Sunday, Minister Luhut stated that at least, India is interested to invest in airplane industry, drones, palm oil, generic drug production, training to develop maritime human resources, plastic waste processing into energy, cleaning river and biodiesel technology. Especially in tourism sector, cooperation is targeted to open direct flight  route from Delhi or Mumbai to Jakarta, Bali, Medan, or other cities in Indonesia. The opportunity is considered to have high potential, remembering the number of Indian tourists visiting Indonesia reached 485,000 people last year. Thus, to follow  up the visit, Minister Luhut will dispatch technical team to India this week. Cooperation opportunity, which has been concrete, will be discussed in in the level of head of state if Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi will visit Indonesia on May 30, 2018.