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JAKARTA, May 12 (APD)– Indonesia is eagerly expecting results of effective synergy between the nation’s Global Maritime Fulcrum vision with China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Economic Belt which a senior Indonesian official said of sensibly promising and has a high compatibility to further enhance economies of the two countries.
Head of Indonesia’s Investment Coordination Board (BKPM) Thomas Trikasih Lembong said that visions envisaged by Chinese and Indonesian presidents are highly matched to each other as they have similar aspects to make their respective visions more effective.
“As the Chinese president’s vision is designed to pass through Indonesia that has 45 percent of population and significant economic scale in Southeast Asia region, it is reasonably effective. Moreover, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago country,” Thomas said in his office here on Friday.
He added that the linking of two maritime visions would highly contribute to make China’s the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) global vision more effective.
Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum was aimed at making more effective use of its vast sea to further boost national economy by improving the connectivity through port infrastructure, sea transport and assuring sustainable production of maritime-related resources.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision was aimed at promoting prosperity among countries passed by the ancient Silk Road trade path through collaboration by highlighting infrastructure facilities so as to comply with the aim.
The initiative is the world’s largest infrastructure program in current era, which in line with President Joko Widodo’s focus in improving national infrastructure sector, he said.
“So it is very natural to synergize our infrastructure programs with the initiative,” Thomas added.
More than 500 billion U.S. Dollars are required to finance infrastructure projects under the initiatives, reports said.
Citing to the success of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor), a set of infrastructure project jointly carried out by governments of the two nations whose value have swelled to 62 billion U.S. Dollars from 43 billion U.S. Dollars within three years, Thomas said that Indonesia wants to have similar cooperation with China under the initiative.
The CPEC constitutes several integrated infrastructure and connectivity projects that include toll road, railway tracks, gas and oil pipelines, power transmission and fiber optic linking China and Pakistan territories, he said.
Indonesia has also developed similar concepts which would be focused on one or two regions, he said.
Multi-dimensional infrastructure that linking functions of seaports, airports, toll roads, railway tracks, pipelines, power transmission, tourism is the concept chosen by Indonesia in the designated regions, he pointed out.
The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held from May 14 to 15 in Beijing with leaders of 28 countries were expected to attend the event.
The senior official said in the upcoming 2-day summit, President Joko Widodo would possibly meet with President Xi Jinping to further discuss about investments in service sector in Indonesia’s designated regions, particularly in tourism sector that has been turned into Indonesia’s focal industry.
Earlier reports said that Indonesia is aiming to get tens of billion U.S. Dollars of Chinese investments under the initiative in the upcoming summit, particularly to finance massive hospitality and infrastructure projects in its focal sector.
Thomas said Chinese investments in Indonesia have been increasing enormously in the last three to four years, from the 12th rank of Indonesia’s Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in 2013 to the third largest one at present.
“I see this is a good momentum. Thanks to President Widodo’s efforts to preserve good economic relations between China and Indonesia,” Thomas said.
The exciting growth was also seen in the rapid growth of Chinese visitor arrivals to Indonesia in the last few years. They are now dominating foreign visitors in Indonesia with Bali and Manado are their most favorite destinations.
Considering its closer distance to China and countries of potential foreign visitors to Indonesia, Thomas added that government has planned to develop Manado destination as a hub for tourism and services to support Chinese investments which operate in Indonesia’s eastern region around the capital of North Sulawesi province.
(ASIA PACIFIF DAILY)
