T

he United States received orders worth US$21 billion from Indonesian airline Lion Air during US President Barack Obama’s visit in November, while the United Kingdom sealed a $2.4 billion deal from state flag carrier Garuda Indonesia to purchase Airbus aircraft during Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent trip here last week.

While these advanced nations profited well from the deals, Indonesia seems to have gained few economic advantages.

Growth in foreign investment into Indonesia remains sluggish, with the annual value of such investment still lagging far behind those of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Indonesian Defense University international expert Bantarto Bandoro raised concerns over the government’s failure to fight for the country’s interests in all of the recent and upcoming bilateral meetings.

“The meetings are part of an effort to enrich the country’s relationships with other nations. However, I hope these efforts will not end up only as pieces of paper and rhetoric,” said Bantarto on Monday. “There should be concrete and positive benefits for the country.”

With a boom in Indonesia’s economy, prominent foreign leaders have jumped on the bandwagon to tap economic opportunities amid a lingering global economic slowdown centered on the US and Europe.

So far, there have been at least nine bilateral meetings this year, with Yudhoyono slated to meet New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday after that country realized that it was lagging behind others in tapping the honey pot of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Parahyangan University international relations expert Andreas Hugo Pareira said Indonesia’s rising international profile was obvious as the country was among the G20 club of the world’s largest economies.

“But the question is whether the bilateral or multilateral meetings have benefitted us. I don’t think so,” he said.

“For example, during the meeting with Prime Minister Cameron, it is clear that our counterparts were more dominant in promoting their national interests,” he said. “They wanted to sell their products. And what did we get in return?”

With a population of 240 million and an economic growth averaging more than 6 percent in the last five years, Indonesia has been seen as a lucrative potential market by many countries.

However, few deals have been forged to lure foreign investment and eliminate trade barriers against Indonesian exports.

“We seem to care most about boosting our image rather than struggling to achieve our national interests, which matters most for the people’s welfare,” said Andreas.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene disagreed with the critics, saying there were many concrete benefits that the country received from a number of bilateral meetings.

“For example in our visit to China, there were several areas of bilateral trade that we agreed to increase. Another one is our deal with South Korea to increase trade to $50 billion by 2015,” he said.