After 66 years of diplomatic relations, Indonesia has welcomed the first official visit from a Romanian foreign minister to strengthen the countries’ bilateral relationship.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi warmly welcomed her counterpart Lazar Comanescu on Wednesday morning at the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta and the two had a 30-minute conversation.

Comanescu is visiting Jakarta with seven business leaders from various sectors, including energy, construction, customer goods and agriculture to attend the 2016 Indonesian Trade Expo (TEI), which was opened by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday at Jiexpo in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.

A number of issues were raised during the talks, including the economy, infrastructure, people-to-people relations, education and political support on the international level.

After their closed-door meeting, Retno said that the two countries had agreed to strengthen economic ties as “if we look at the trade figure of our two countries, we are glad that we saw very significant growth [from] January to June this year compared with January to June last year.”

“It shows 32.5 percent growth in our bilateral trade. It is a positive sign for our bilateral relations,”she said.

According to the Indonesian Trade Ministry, Indonesia enjoyed a trade surplus of US$67.5 million in 2015 with total trade between Indonesia and Romania worth $177.6 million.

The value of Indonesian exports to Romania in 2015 reached $92.5 million, while imports hit $25 million.

Romania is Indonesia’s sixth-largest market in the East and Middle Europe, with its main export products including rubber, paper, cardboard and artificial fiber material while Indonesia imports machinery products, pharmaceutical products, wood, coal and iron ore.

The chambers of commerce of Indonesia and Romania have signed a cooperation agreement and therefore “the private sectors will take the role in effort in strengthening the economic cooperation”, Retno said.

Meanwhile, Comanescu said that Indonesia was a potential key partner for Romania.

“For us, Indonesia is an important partner in Asia as a whole and is [an] important member of the ASEAN, he said.”

He said that besides the economy, both countries would also strengthen their cooperation in the infrastructure sector. “In [a] global world, connectivity is essential and connectivity without infrastructure is not possible. So we agreed to explore more to develop our cooperation in this area as well,” he said.

Both countries have also agreed to support each other in their respective campaigns to join the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Romania submitted its candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UNSC in 2006, for the period of 2020 to 2021. The vote will be held in 2019.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is running for a non-permanent seat on the council for the 2019 to 2020 period.

Earlier on Tuesday, Retno made another historic welcome when she received Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa.

Novoa is the first Uruguayan foreign minister to visit Indonesia in 51 years of diplomatic relations.

Other than improving bilateral ties, by opening an Uruguayan embassy in Jakarta by 2017, Novoa also aimed to foster market integration between ASEAN and Mercosur, an economic bloc comprising of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The ASEAN secretariat is located in Jakarta while Mercosur is headquartered in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. (sha)

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