Competition among Internet giants in Indonesia is likely to heat up after microblogging site Twitter opened a Jakarta office on Thursday and unveiled an expansion plan to tap the nation'€™s fast-growing Internet users.

'€œOpening the Twitter Jakarta office'€ was a tweet posted by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in the evening after his day-long trip touring the city, which included a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla and other stakeholders in the telecommunications and Internet industry.

With its new office, Twitter is likely to jostle with Internet giants Google and Facebook, which already possess a strong presence in Indonesia.

'€œThere'€™s absolutely plan to expand in Indonesia both with mobile operator partners, entertainment partners and the government,'€ Costolo said.

'€œI think this is the right time for Twitter to open an office here in Jakarta.'€

Indonesia has an Internet penetration that is among the fastest-growing in the world, with total Internet users in the country totaling 71 million in 2013, up by about 13 percent from the previous year, according to the Association of Indonesian Internet Providers (APJII).

That has attracted Silicon Valley companies, with Facebook having opened its office in Indonesia last year, following the footsteps of Google, which set up an office in Jakarta in 2012.

The Indonesian market is so important that in October last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came to Indonesia to meet with President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, even joining the then president-elect in a blusukan (impromptu visit) to a garment market in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

Costolo said that although he had only stopped by here on his Asia trip '€” he also visited India this week '€” he emphasized that Jakarta would be '€œthe city where I would be spending most of my time'€ given its importance to his company'€™s growth.

According to a 2013 Twitter report, Indonesia ranked fifth in Twitter use worldwide with 29 million users, trailing the US, Brazil, Japan and the UK.

Meanwhile, Jakarta is known as the world'€™s most active Twitter city that made up 2 percent of 10.6 billion tweets worldwide, surpassing London and Tokyo as the second and third most active cities, according to data from social media consultant Semiocast.

But, its fast-growing number of Internet users is not the only thing that is attractive about Indonesia. Costolo also mentioned the importance of freedom of speech and the political landscape of Indonesia, the world'€™s third-largest democracy.

Costolo teased Kalla that Twitter may have played a role in his successful political campaign. '€œI think the Vice President was extremely effective in using the platform,'€ said the Twitter CEO.

In the afternoon, Costolo retweeted a picture of him and Kalla that was posted on the @Pak_JK Twitter account.

Kalla said that he and Costolo did not discuss the controversy surrounding a regulation designed by the Communications and Information Technology Ministry that would soon require all foreign companies, from banks to Internet firms, to establish a data server in Indonesia.

'€œWe talked mostly about its business development in Indonesia, with the hope that young citizens will be able to utilize Twitter for positive purposes,'€ the Vice President said.

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