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ational Rattan Innovation Center (Pirnas) and Germany’s Innovationszentrum Lichtenfels signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Jakarta on Wednesday to develop Indonesia’s rattan industry.

“This agreement will help us to develop our rattan designs, and a number of collaborations with Germany will begin starting today,” said the Industry Ministry’s director general for regional industrial development, Dedi Mulyadi.

He said that this was a long-term partnership between the two countries and both parties planned to develop programs in the first three years.

“We will see a lot workshops, seminars and research in the rattan industry with Germany. We believe that by having better designs we can better market our rattan products, not only to Germany but also to other countries as well,” Dedi said, adding that Pirnas participated in Europe’s largest furniture exhibition, the International Mebel Messe (IMM) in Cologne, Germany on Jan. 14–20 this year.

Auwi Stubbe of the marketing design technology division of Innovationszentrum Lichtenfels, said that more though needed to go into the design of Indonesia’s rattan products.

“Design seems to be a small element in rattan products, but actually it is a very important element. You have to sell products that suit the taste of the customers,” Auwi said.

He plans to visit the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) next week to meet with young creative people in West Java.