T

he Indonesian mission in Moscow is set to hold its third cultural festival this summer, aiming to display Indonesian culture and commodities to attract tourists and trade, Indonesian Ambassador to Russia Wahid Supriyadi said on Friday.

The festival is to be held from Aug. 2 to 5 at the Krasnaya Presnya Park, which is located near the Moscow Zoo and the Russian White House. It is in a central business district in Moscow covering an area of 16.5 hectares. Wahid said the festival has been well received since the first time it was held in 2016, when it managed to get 68,000 visitors. That year, trade with Russia increased by a third and tourist visits also increased by 22.5 percent compared to 2015.

He said such positive results had encouraged him to organize another festival in early August last year. It displayed the booths of 70 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and 14 local governments, attracting 91,600 visits and resulting in a 37.28 percent increase of tourist visits from Russia last year, the highest growth compared to all other countries in the world.

He said the two previous successes encouraged him to make the festival an annual event. He said he is aiming for 120,000 visits this year. He said among the regions to promote their tourist attractions in the festival were East Java, North Sumatra, North Sulawesi, Yogyakarta and Central Java. He also said more than 100 SMEs signed up for booths.

Even though China is still Indonesia’s biggest source of tourists, he said, “Russian tourists are categorized as the high-end type because they are among the longest staying tourists after the Germans and the fourth most spending tourists in Bali,” he said.

Wahid said other popular commodities at the festival were coffee, tea, maté and spices, sales of which saw an 113 percent increase between January to November last year. “In the last festival, any kind of coffee was sold out on the first day,” he said, adding that follow-up transactions were facilitated through a business-matching space at the festival.

As Indonesia’s main export to Russia remains palm oil, the festival would also host a forum on it. Oleg S. Medvedev from Lomonosov Moscow State University was invited to present his research on its benefits. “While palm oil exports to other European countries have been facing challenges, we don’t see problems with Russia so far,” Wahid said.

The total value of trade between Indonesia and Russia was still behind that of Vietnam and Singapore, he said, “But we still have a higher surplus, even more than Vietnam which has traditional relations and a free trade agreement with the EU,” he said, adding that Singapore had a deficit because of its oil and gas imports from Russia. Indonesia not only sent raw commodities to Russia, he added, but also value-added goods including machinery, footwear and textiles.

Last month, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expressed disappointment over export figures, which fell behind those of other Southeast Asian countries. “If we keep going on like this, we will be beaten by Cambodia and Laos,” he said. According to Trade Ministry data, the country’s exports were worth US$168.7 billion from January to November in 2017, compared to Thailand’s $236.69 billion, Vietnam’s $213.77 billion and Malaysia’s $219.45 billion.