AFP

The Jakarta city administration is looking to enhance cooperation with cities that have similar characteristics or face similar challenges.

The Sister City program benefits both cities in various fields, including culture, tourism and education.

So far Jakarta has 21 sister cities. Here are five that have interesting cooperation projects with the capital city.

Seoul

The head of the Gubernatorial and Foreign Affairs bureau, Muhammad Mawardi, said on Thursday that the cooperation between Jakarta and Seoul mostly concerned human resource development.

'€œThe Jakarta Employment Agency usually sends several vocational student graduates [to Seoul] for training in manufacturing industries,'€ he said, adding the training period lasted for two or three years.

Mawardi said the program, initiated in 1984, also offered a chance for administration officials to study in Seoul.

'€œThey usually take graduate programs in public administration,'€ he said, adding that tuition and living expenses were fully covered by the Seoul administration.

Rotterdam

In a bid to tackle perennial flooding, the city administration works with the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, which excels at water-management.

The recent cooperation between the two cities included a three-month training program for Jakarta civil servants on integrated water-management.

In the program, participants learned from Dutch engineers, practitioners, administrators and policymakers.

'€œOur staff will have a better understanding and a broader perspective to search for solutions to the city'€™s problems, especially flooding,'€ Mawardi said.

Beijing

The administration is intensifying its cooperation with Beijing ahead of the Asian Games, which will be held in Jakarta in 2018.

The cooperation covers many fields, especially culture, tourism and sports.

Jakarta plans to send wushu, aerobics and badminton athletes to the Beijing Sports University to help Chinese athletes improve their skills.

'€œWe can request discounts in their tuition fees [in exchange],'€ Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said after meeting with Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun recently.

Jerusalem

The cooperation between Jakarta and Jerusalem started when the Palestinian ambassador to Indonesia, Fariz N. Mehdawi, met with former Jakarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo a couple of years ago.

'€œJerusalem became a sister city, but no concrete cooperation has been held so far,'€ Jokowi said after meeting with the ambassador in 2013.

Jokowi said cooperation would start by exchanging officials and that he hoped the two cities could exchange knowledge in a variety of fields; including infrastructure, democracy, spatial-planning, and even fire-fighting.

Mawardi said at present no joint programs were underway. '€œWe have been only giving political support to Jerusalem so far,'€ he said.

The locals

In 2014, then governor Jokowi commenced a cooperation with two regions in Indonesia '€” Lampung and Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara.

He saw that Lampung could become an even larger food supplier for Jakarta and wanted to work with local farmers to achieve that goal.

The city administration has allocated Rp 51 billion (US$3.9 million) to build an agribusiness terminal this year. The terminal will be operated by city-owned market operator PD Pasar Jaya.

Meanwhile, Kupang is set to become a main producer of meat for the capital city. '€œThe goal is for Kupang to supply at least 9 percent of our meat,'€ said Marina Ratna, president director of city-owned slaughterhouse company Dharma Jaya. The city will fund fattening, breeding and seeding of the cattle. '€” JP

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