VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesia and the African region have established close relations in the political field since the Asian-African Conference in Bandung, in 1955. However, in the past two years, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has had a view to turning the already close political relations into more concrete economic relations. This was conveyed by the Director of Africa, Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Daniel Tumpal S. Simanjuntak at a Panel Discussion for the Africa Day 2019, in Jakarta, Saturday (05/25). According to Daniel, even though there are many trade challenges and obstacles that must be faced, Indonesia and countries in Africa have a lot of room of cooperation that can be done in the future. Daniel added that President Joko Widodo had instructed 3 important things to face barriers in the trade sector.

"We, as Indonesian officials are instructed by the President how we had to promote, to enhance investment, reduce and eliminate the possible trade barriers and promote possible technical cooperation. So these three are important issues that we can see in the near future," said Daniel Simanjuntak.

On the occasion, Daniel Simanjuntak conveyed a number of activities that have been and will be carried out by Indonesia to improve relations between Indonesia and the African Region, namely the Asia Africa Conference in 1955, the 2005 Asia Africa Summit, the 2018 Indonesia-Africa Forum, and the Indonesia Africa Maritime Dialog 2018. In 2019 the Indonesia-Africa Infrastructure Dialogue is scheduled to be held from 20-21 August 2019 in Nusa Dua, Bali to be participated in by Indonesia and 700 African countries.

The Panel discussions for the 2019 Africa Day were attended by Ambassadors of countries in Africa such as Algeria, Sudan, South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia and several other foreign ambassadors in Indonesia. (VOI / AHM)