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pain has promised to provide low-interest loans and more direct investment to Indonesia to further strengthen the two countries'€™ bilateral economic cooperation. Spain'€™s secretary of state for trade, Jaime García-Legaz Ponce, said the Spanish government was offering low-interest loans amounting to 250 million euros to Indonesia for joint projects, ranging from infrastructure to renewable energy.

'€œWe can provide financial facility with maturity date of up to 40 years and with a very low interest rate between zero percent and 1 percent,'€ he said at the Spain-Indonesia Business Forum in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Thirty Spanish companies are taking part in the two-day business forum, which runs until Thursday. Among them are energy firm Duro Felguera, engineering and consulting company Eptisa Servicios de Ingeniería and construction group Obrascón Huarte Lain, according to information provided by the Spanish government.

During his visit to the Industry Ministry on Tuesday, Ponce said that the facility was an upgrade from a previous facility amounting to 70 million euros as Spain saw Indonesia as a fast growing economy.

National Development Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil told reporters after the opening of the business forum on Wednesday that the planned ¤250 million was the first stage of support that the Spanish government would pour into Indonesia.

'€œThere are [also] a lot of opportunities for Spanish companies to tap this potential market,'€ he added.

Under the administration of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, Indonesia plans to embark on an ambitious project of building 35,000-megawatt (MW) power plants and developing renewable energy, among other things.

Ponce said that Spain expected to boost its investment in the country, targeting sectors such as transportation and renewable energy. '€œWe'€™ll just wait for projects to come and we'€™ll start funding them,'€ he said.

Investment from Spain, the fourth largest economy in the EU, remains lower than other eurozone giants like Germany and France.

Spanish foreign direct investment (FDI) in Indonesia amounted to US$25.91 million in the January-September period of this year, making it only the 25th largest foreign investor in Indonesia, according to data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM). Most of the investment went to the defense, chemicals, ceramics and hotel industries.

The Industry Ministry'€™s international industrial security and access development director general, Achmad Sigit Dwiwahjono, said that Spain was currently also looking for easier ways of trading.

He said delegates from the Spanish Trade Ministry had requested that his ministry facilitate a mutual recognition agreement on the quality of their exported ceramics to Indonesia, so exporters would no longer need to have Indonesian surveyors check their factories in Spain.

Indonesia'€™s bilateral trade with Spain remains at a surplus, with Indonesia booking a surplus of $692.04 million during the first eight months of this year, according to data from the Trade Ministry. (fsu)