The Royal Thai Embassy and members of the Thai community in Indonesia celebrate on Dec. 5 the National Day of the Kingdom of Thailand. Thailand and Indonesia have enjoyed cordial relations for more than six decades. In an effort to learn more about Thailand-Indonesia relations and the Thai community in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post’s Veeramalla Anjaiah and Prasiddha Gustanto interviewed Thai Ambassador to Indonesia Pitchayaphant Charnbhumidol recently in Jakarta. The following are excerpts from the interview.

Question: On Dec. 5, your embassy will celebrate the National Day of the Kingdom of Thailand in Jakarta. What is the significance of the occasion this year?

Answer: On the 5th of December, we will celebrate three auspicious occasions. The first auspicious occasion is our National Day. We consider the 5th of December as our National Day from now on. Secondly, we mark the 5th of December as the birthday anniversary of His Majesty, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. And third is Thailand’s Father’s Day.

The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej was considered by the Thai people as their father figure, so it is also the day that we will remember as our Father’s Day. Three occasions in one day. That is why it is a very important for all the Thai people.

Thailand and Indonesia have been maintaining cordial relations for more than 1,500 years. What makes these relations special?

Though we don’t have the historical records about the 1,500 years of relations between Thailand and Indonesia, we could say that we had some kind of trade between the two countries during the time of the Sriwijaya empire. You can see in the National Museum, there are some ceramics from Thailand that entered Indonesia, and some puppets from Thailand also were shown in the museum in Indonesia. But we can say that the very concrete evidence of the progress and development of our relations between Indonesia and Thailand was vividly seen in 1871. That was the time of our late King Rama V.

So King Rama V first visited Indonesia in 1871. In order to learn more about the development of Indonesia during the Dutch colonial era, he came to Batavia to see the railway system and to see how the living conditions were. He also visited Indonesia in 1896 and 1901.

During his visit to Indonesia in 1896, King Rama V donated the Elephant Statue, which is now in front of the National Museum in Jakarta.

Then, King Rama VII visited Indonesia in the late 1920s. After that, King Rama IX and his queen also visited Indonesia in 1960. The king was received by Indonesia’s then president Sukarno. So it is clearly visible from Thai royal visits to Indonesia that there have been good relations between the two countries and these visits positively contributed toward creating special friendships and relations between the leaders of both countries as well as the governments.

In 1986, our present king, King Rama X, also visited Indonesia for the first time when he was the crown prince of Thailand. This shows how strong the relationships are between the members of the highest royal family of Thailand and the Indonesian government and people.

Besides this, we have also had a long government-to-government relationship. It has been 67 years of diplomatic ties since Thailand established a diplomatic relationship with Indonesia in 1950.

 In 2015, our Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-o-Cha, and his delegation visited Indonesia to attend the Asian-African Conference in Bandung and Jakarta. He also met with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Last year, President Jokowi paid a visit to Thailand to bid farewell and pay his respects to the late King Rama IX. This year, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri attended the cremation ceremony of the late king Bhumibol in October. This shows the strong relationships between the two countries at the government-to-government level. The Thai and Indonesian people have known each other for a long time.

During the time that King Rama V visited Indonesia in the past, he also took along some Indonesians to live in Bangkok. People in certain areas in Bangkok are now considered Indonesian Muslims, the descendants of Indonesians who went to Bangkok in the past.

There is huge bilateral trade (US$14.06 billion in 2016) between the two countries. Could you please shed some light on Thailand’s economic ties with Indonesia?

We exported around US$8 billion to Indonesia [in 2016] and Indonesia exported to Thailand around $6.5 billion. This year also, from January to October, I believe our bilateral two-way trade reached almost $14 billion. It could surpass $14 billion because we have three more months.

Our investment in Indonesia is also very high. In 2016, our investment in Indonesia was over $338 million, mostly in manufacturing, construction and automotive parts. That jumped almost 200 percent from 2015. This year, although it is not that much, it is still in the range of almost $200 million.

Trade figures are improving, investment figures are increasing. So it shows how close relations between our two countries are in terms of economic ties.

Major exports from Thailand to Indonesia are some automotive parts, sugar, polymers and food products. The exports from Indonesia to Thailand are mainly coal, oil, natural gas and some machinery. Also, automotive parts too. So, basically, these are the major export and import items. But, in the future, I believe we can create more trade in many areas. I just came back from Batam and there were some Thai companies planning to invest in coffee production for exports. I think there are possibilities for the expansion of trade in the areas of steel products.I hope we can have Thai companies invest in Indonesia in steel production and some other areas such as food processing, because we have knowledge on food processing that we can share with Indonesian companies.

Pitchayaphant Charnbhumidol - JP/Arief Suhardiman

Both countries have signed numerous bilateral agreements to enhance cooperation in various sectors. We have the Joint Commission Meeting late this month in Yogyakarta. In your opinion, what should be done to take our countries’ relations to a new level?

In order to raise the level of our cooperation and relations between the two countries, we need to have the official visit of President Jokowi. He hasn’t yet officially visited Thailand.

So we hope we can get the official visit to Thailand, although our Prime Minister Prayut and President Jokowi have already met each other during the ASEAN Summit or APEC meetings.

Perhaps in the future we can create a special leader’s retreat. If we can hold a kind of leader’s retreat between Thailand and Indonesia, that will help develop the relationship between the two countries.

In order to enhance the relations between Indonesia and Thailand, we support the idea of a strategic partnership with Indonesia. In the future, the Thai people and the government are ready to have a strategic partnership with Indonesia. It should come from both sides. If the two leaders can meet each other bilaterally next year, we can discuss the issue of a strategic partnership together.

We have a very dynamic and vibrant Thai community in Indonesia. Could you tell us more about the Thai community? How big is the Thai community in Indonesia?

We have altogether 2,500 Thai people living in Indonesia. Most of them live in Jakarta, Palembang, Surakarta, Surabaya and Bali. We have some 300 Thai business executives and 1,900 Thai students. Some Thai citizens are married to Indonesians.

In business areas, the major Thai companies operate in many sectors in Indonesia. Among them is Siam Cement Group (SCG), which works with construction material like cement, ceramics and even petrochemicals.

Besides SCG, we have Banpu, a coal mining company that has operations in Kalimantan. Banpu exports coal to Japan, South Korea and China. Another company is called Thai Summit. They produce automotive parts for cars, some interior decorations, seats – anything related to automotive parts, they make it in Tangerang.

In Palembang, there is a company called Sri Trang. They make natural rubber blocks, the main ingredient to make tires for motorcycles, vehicles and trucks. They supply this natural rubber block to the Michelin and Goodyear tire companies. And then we have another big company called Charoen Pokphand (CP) in Indonesia, which works with food and animal food and chicken products. I guess these are the examples of some Thai companies. Even in Grand Indonesia, they have the Central Department Store from Thailand.

Thailand is the number one tourist destination in Asia. How many Indonesians visited Thailand last year?  

We have a good cooperation program in the tourism sector. We offer training to interested Indonesian tourism officials.

Last year, almost 100,000 Thai nationals visited Indonesia, while more than 500,000 Indonesian tourists visited Thailand. This year, the number is quite similar. As of now, from January to October, we have had almost 500,000 Indonesian tourists visit Thailand, while around 80,000 Thai tourists visited Indonesia.

Do you have any special message to the members of the Thai community?

Our message to the Thai community in Indonesia is very simple. We want our Thai people to be friendly with Indonesian people, to create friendships and close contacts. They must show the Indonesian people our culture, our friendliness and our Thai attitudes. We have a very similar culture to Indonesia. We have similar food to Indonesia. We just want to exchange more visits, more contacts, more activities together.