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Germany provides 111 million euros aid for reconstruction
Indonesia and Germany signed six agreements on technical assistance worth 111 million euros Tuesday, which will be used in the reconstruction of disaster-hit areas across the archipelago
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ndonesia and Germany signed six agreements on technical assistance worth 111 million euros Tuesday, which will be used in the reconstruction of disaster-hit areas across the archipelago.
The amount is a combination of grants and soft loans, the former making up 90 percent of the total, some of which has been disbursed for reconstruction efforts in Tsunami-hit Aceh and earthquake-ravaged Yogyakarta since 2007.
After the signing ceremony, Retno L.P. Marsudi, the director general of American and European affairs at the Foreign Ministry, said development was one of the priorities for cooperation between the two countries.
“Our bilateral relations are strong. Germany is committed to working closer with Jakarta on development projects,” she said.
She said both President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had identified key priorities for closer cooperation, including climate change, and education and development, during Yudhoyono’s visit to Berlin last December.
Retno said Jakarta and Berlin were scheduled to launch a new round of discussions on development cooperation this week.
German Ambassador Norbert Baas said the meeting was also aimed at looking into further cooperation between Germany and Indonesia, especially in the geothermal energy sector and infrastructure development in Indonesia.
“We can see the opportunities here and it is now up to all the companies, both in Indonesia and Germany, to identify future cooperation projects. The future challenge will lie in how to convince both business communities here and in Germany to do more together,” he said.
Jakarta has been increasing efforts to attract more foreign investment to support its economic growth target of 7 percent by 2014.
On the economic front, Baas said Germany, under the European Union (EU), was looking to establish a common market with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) under a free trade agreement (FTA). Both countries have established a group to study the prospects of an FTA with the EU.
Indonesia and the EU last year signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement covering a wide range of cooperation, but not including a free trade agreement.
“The prospect for the ASEAN-EU FTA is not something can be reached in the near future,” Baas said.
“We are currently negotiating separate [economic] agreements and hopefully one day they can be unified into an agreement between the EU and ASEAN. But this is now in the hands of the EU, not a matter for its member states.”
Baas said Germany expected to work with Indonesia on global agenda as bilateral relations also extended to multilateral fronts.
“Indonesia has relations with the EU. We are both members of the G20. Indonesia plays a key role in Southeast Asia, in ASEAN. All these things together already form a global agenda,” he said.
