President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s recent visits to countries in Western Europe with strong gross domestic product (GDP) were all about economic diplomacy, securing a total of US$20.5 billion in foreign investment for Indonesia’s cash-strapped infrastructure, maritime, energy, minerals and financial sectors.

During the five-day trip on April 18-22, Jokowi, a former furniture businessman, carried out several key state visits. He spent 20 hours in Berlin on April 18, two days in London and one day each in Brussels and the Netherlands, before departing for Jakarta on Friday.

Offering marketing-style chitchat and colloquial speeches instead of formal presidential remarks, the marathon trip went from one business forum to another, as well as to numerous one-on-one business meetings, in Germany, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, to woo leading business players to invest big in Indonesia’s burgeoning market.

Jokowi told the fora how widespread infrastructure development coupled with deregulation-driven economic stabilization had spurred the country’s GDP growth to 5.03 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 despite a weakening global economy, citing that the archipelagic nation was currently enjoying “the highest demands for investment in history”.

As a result of the visits, Indonesia secured six business deals from Germany worth $875 million in the energy sector; around $19.02 billion in 13 deals from the UK to support the automotive, consumer product, renewable energy, waste management and telecommunications sectors, as well as diesel-fueled power plants, hydropower plants and energy; and around $606.2 million in four deals from the Netherlands to finance projects related to infrastructure, renewable energy, agriculture and human resources development in the maritime sector.

Indonesia and Belgium did not sign any business deals, with Jokowi instead focusing on finalizing scoping papers for the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) with EU leaders to mark the start of negotiations on the CEPA between Indonesia and the world’s strongest economic entity.

With the start of the negotiations, Indonesian products can look forward to future access to a wider market in the EU, whose GDP value accounts for 29.86 percent of the world economy.

The two parties will start negotiating on investment, government-to-government goods and service procurement, intellectual property rights, technical barriers for two-way trade and non-tariff barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in relation to the CEPA.

Jokowi’s European visit also saw several export and import agreements rounded out by Indonesian companies with their respective partners in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.

In Berlin, Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper company, Asia-Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) secured a deal to export products worth $35 million to Europe through its Germany-based partner INAPA group, while in London, APRIL announced a plan to export pulp and paper worth $12 million to its UK partner Roxcel Group.

Meanwhile, state-owned shipping firm PT Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia (Pelni) signed a commitment to buy a multifunctional ship worth $40 million from Meyer Werft through KfW IPEX-Bank.

 In addition, flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is to spend $1.2 billion with the UK’s Rolls Royce to refurbish and maintain 14 of its aircraft engines as well as establishing a Garuda maintenance facility called Aero Asia, which will serve Southeast Asia.

 At the government-to-government level, Jokowi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Germany on vocational systems.

In the UK, the President signed a number of MoUs on the creative economy and creative industry as part of his plan to boost the economy through means other than export and investment strategies.

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