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Jakarta Post

RI, NZ look beyond dairy, palm oil for new business

New Zealand is seeking to forge stronger relations with Indonesia, following a recent high-ranking visit made by Prime Minister John Key to Jakarta

Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, September 23, 2016

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RI, NZ look beyond dairy, palm oil for new business

New Zealand is seeking to forge stronger relations with Indonesia, following a recent high-ranking visit made by Prime Minister John Key to Jakarta.

Both countries now aim to achieve annual bilateral trade of US$4 billion by 2024, an increase from the current $1 billion.

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay, who is back on his second visit to Jakarta, said that many opportunities were still waiting to be tapped beyond the traditional fields of dairy and crude petroleum oil.

“There is a significant number of areas that I talked about with your trade minister today and we need to find very constructive ways to work closely together,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday after meeting with Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita.

Among the potential fields to explore are specialty coffee, tropical fruits, education, the digital economy and tourism.

Data from the Geneva-based International Trade Center (ITC) show that trade activities between the two countries have grown substantially during the past 10 years.

In 2006, Indonesia exported goods worth $320 million to New Zealand and the figure had risen by 36.3 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, Indonesia imported goods worth $333.75 million from New Zealand in 2006 and had seen this figure jump by more than 90 percent by the end of 2015.

McClay added that constructive cooperation was already ongoing with several pilot projects to improve productivity in several industries, like beef, renewable energy and aviation.

The world’s number one dairy exporter has been helping Indonesia create a sustainable beef industry with research and development that will result in better breeding genetics. New Zealand has a population of 4.5 million, but has the capacity to feed about 40 million people worldwide through its robust food production.

McClay said New Zealand was looking to help Indonesia realize its renewable energy target of 23 percent by 2025 as well, adding that it was already generating 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources, such as hydropower and geothermal.

The two countries’ energy partnership was reflected by a deal signed in 2012 between Geothermal New Zealand (Geonz) and Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE)—the subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina—to develop 1,000 megawatts of electricity generation in Sulawesi and Sumatra.

In aviation, McClay said Indonesia stood a chance of becoming the world’s sixth largest aviation market by 2030 with its more than 250 million people.

McClay is slated to meet with other senior Indonesian officials during his visit, including Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto and Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) head Tom Lembong.

Separately, Industry Ministry director general for international industrial security and access development Harjanto said Indonesia saw the partnership with New Zealand as a “new trade order approach” that enabled it to source raw materials from the Pacific country to be processed as highly value-added products.

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