VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

On the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UN) in New York, the United States, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi had the opportunity to hold a number of bilateral meetings. One of them was a meeting with Minister of Burundi’s External Relations and International Cooperation, Ezechiel Nibigira. At the meeting, both ministers discussed Burundi's desire to educate its diplomats in Indonesia. In a press statement received by Voice of Indonesia on Friday, September 28, 2018, Minister Retno Marsudi emphasized that Burundi's wish could be realized because Indonesia had done the same thing with some countries.

"Just now with Burundi in the context, of course, we associate with our priorities for Africa and Burundi hopes that Indonesia can educate its  diplomats and I think this is something we can do. Because Indonesia has collaborated to educate foreign diplomats in Indonesia. Indeed, we have an international diplomat education program by inviting foreign diplomats to be educated in Indonesia,” said Retno Marsudi.

In addition, Minister Retno Marsudi also expressed that Burundi wants Indonesian investors to invest in Burundi. Burundi expects Indonesian investors to come and invest their capital in infrastructure development in the country. Because Indonesia has successfully carried out economic activities, including investment in other African countries. On the same occasion, Minister Retno Marsudi also promoted the Indonesia-Africa Infrastructure Dialogue which will be held next year. He hopes Burundi will attend and participate in the dialogue. (Rezha/Trans by R)

Amazon Web Services, a large global e-commerce company from the United States will invest in Indonesia. This investment worth around Rp 14 trillion is in the form of technology cloud computing which makes the internet as the center of data management. The plan was delivered by Vice President of Amazon Web Services, Werner Vogels to President Joko Widodo during their meeting in Jakarta more recently. As a key speaker of the US-Indonesia Investment Summit in Jakarta recently, Minister of Communication and Information, Rudiantara disclosed that Indonesia has to be increasingly involved in all international-scale digital activities. One way that can be done is to provide opportunities for Amazon Web Services to invest in Indonesia. This can make Indonesia the center of digital economic development in the Southeast Asia region or ASEAN. The reason is that Indonesia has the largest market among other ASEAN countries.

"Indonesia must be on the digital map of the world. So, we welcome investment in the digital field that is friendly. We have the largest market, the highest growth of Unicorn in ASEAN. Then, the development of the digital economy is also extraordinary. I mentioned earlier in 2020; the digital economy is approximately worth US$130 billion dollars. That's 12 percent of our GDP. That's huge," said Rudiantara.

Furthermore, before Amazon Web Services officially invests in Indonesia, Minister Rudiantara sets absolute requirements for Amazon Web Services that must be able to absorb local employees and develop Indonesian human resources. These conditions have also been expressed by the government when collaborating with Microsoft, Google and Sisco. Large companies are required to establish partnerships with 20 universities in Indonesia. The goal is to create 20 thousand technicians in the digital field. For the pilot project that begins this year, Minister Rudiantara said that 1,000 people would be educated in five universities. Until last week, at least, 33 thousand people have been registered. (Rezha/Trans by R)

Minister of National Development Planning -PPN/Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Bambang Brodjonegoro at the US-Indonesia Investment Summit in Jakarta recently said that so far, US investment has been dominant in the mining sector in Papua. This occurred until the end of 2017. However, the trend changed in the first semester of 2018. The sector in demand by the US shifts to the hotel and restaurant or tourism sector in Jakarta. In the second quarter of 2018, US investment in Indonesia was recorded at US$ 273.9 billion or in the seventh place.

"There is interesting data regarding American investment in Indonesia for the previous periods until 2017; the US investment was dominated by one sector in one region, mining in Papua. I don't need to say what company is. But that is the dominant investment from America in Indonesia, mining in Papua. But in 2018 semester one, it is still the nature of temporary data; the temporary data turns out that American investment in Indonesia is shifting. One sector is one area; one sector is hotel and restaurant in Jakarta. So what does that mean? There has been a shift towards tourism investment from the United States," Bambang Brodjonegoro said.

Furthermore, Minister Bambang hopes that this trend will continue because in the end, Indonesian and US economies must expect tourists and tourism. He added that US investment in Indonesia is still low compared to Singapore, Japan and China. The share of US investment in Indonesia only ranges from 3.1 percent to 6.2 percent. Therefore, Minister Bambang said, Indonesia opens up many opportunities for the US to invest in Indonesia, including in the tourism sector outside Jakarta and Bali which have been the main investment destinations. (Rezha/Trans by R)

Tanjung Lesung as one of the special economic zones starts attracting the attention of domestic and foreign tourists. The Tanjung Lesung Wonder Festival, that has taken place from 28 to 30 September 2018, presents a variety of events. One of them is Rhino X-triathlon. To the Voice of Indonesia, Friday (28/9) in Tanjung Lesung, Minister of Tourism, Arif Yahya remarked that to reach the target of one million foreign tourists, Tanjung Lesung will be supported by the central government through the necessary infrastructure development.

"The most needed is access. So, toll access is the most important that we are waiting to be completed  in 2020. In 2019, section  One will be completed. The second one is railroad revitalization. We hope that the location of the airport is available as proposed this year by the Banten provincial government. From the beginning, we have set one million foreign tourists to Banten. If there are one million tourists, this means that one billion US dollars is circulating here, especially in Pandeglang. If there is around Rp. 14 trillion, we believe that the economy here will move quickly,” said Arif Yahya.

Furthermore, Minister Arif Yahya explained that his side has also prepared Tanjung Lesung's human resources with various facilities that are able to support the Tanjung Lesung community to be able to manage tourism objects professionally by using information technology. (VOI/Nuke/Trans by R)