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Africa wants to enhance ties with RI
African nations are calling for increased cooperation with Indonesia, saying their rich resources provide promising economic opportunities
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frican nations are calling for increased cooperation with Indonesia, saying their rich resources provide promising economic opportunities.
"What we want to do is to increase the level of this interaction for the benefit of our countries and our people," the dean of the Africa Group in Jakarta and the Zimbabwean Ambassador Alice Mageza told a press conference at the Egyptian Embassy on Monday.
She was speaking ahead of Africa Day, which falls on May 25 and celebrates "African unity and solidarity", as well as the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.
Accompanying Mageza were Sudanese Ambassador Ibrahim Bushra Mohamed Ali, Algerian Ambassador Abdelkrim Belarbi, Libyan People's bureau counselor Masoud S. El Koshly, Tunisian Ambassador Faysal Gouia, Somalian Ambassador Mohamud Olow Barow, Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed El Kewaisny, South African Ambassador Noel Noa Lehoko and Mozambique Ambassador Carlos Agustinho do Rosario.
Mageza said the chance to expand economic cooperation was not limited to existing Indonesian companies already operating in Africa.
There is significant potential for economic cooperation between African countries and Indonesia in the fields of trade, textiles, oil, machinery, investment (pharmaceutical, food and soap), tourism, capacity building, technology transfer and environment, she said.
"Recently, Sudan signed an agreement with *Indonesia's state oil and gas firm* Pertamina, while Somalia has signed an agreement on leather products," Mageza said.
"We have *Indonesian* investors - Indorama and Indofood - in Nigeria and we have a number of Indonesian mining companies in some of our countries," she added.
Mageza said that Indonesian construction companies were already operating in Tunisia, while an Indonesian investor owned ostrich farms in Zimbabwe.
"He exports ostrich meat to Europe and is also manufacturing bags out of ostrich skin. The investor is going well," she said.
Egyptian Ambassador El Kewaisny said that Egypt was looking forward to increasing the volume of its bilateral trade with Indonesia, which exceeded US$1 billion last year, through a free trade agreement in the future.
John Prasetio, the deputy chairman of international economic cooperation at the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), said economic growth in Africa was starting to show positive signs. African countries are now far better off than before," he told The Jakarta Post.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry director for Africa affairs, Sudirman Haseng, said that trade between Indonesia and African countries had grown by 5 percent per annum over the past five years.
"Our trade with African countries, excluding Maghribi countries, has reached $2 billion a year."
