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Polish companies eye Indonesian market
Say cheese!: Polish Ambassador to Indonesia Beata Stoczyńska (center, front row, wearing glasses) poses together with Polish businessmen and Indonesian friends during a dinner at the ambassador’s residence in South Jakarta on Wednesday
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ay cheese!: Polish Ambassador to Indonesia Beata Stoczyńska (center, front row, wearing glasses) poses together with Polish businessmen and Indonesian friends during a dinner at the ambassador’s residence in South Jakarta on Wednesday.
Words JP/Veeramalla Anjaiah Photos JP/Arief Suhardiman
Major Polish companies consider Indonesia a strategic market in Southeast Asia and want to intensify their efforts to enhance economic links with their Indonesian counterparts, a top Polish diplomat said.
“We consider Indonesia an important market in Southeast Asia. We already have US$1 billion trade with Indonesia. Our Polish companies want to focus on the marine, mining and energy sectors in Indonesia. We want to interact more with Indonesia,” Poland Ambassador to Indonesia Beata Stoczyńska told The Jakarta Post during a reception to welcome a Polish trade delegation on Wednesday in Jakarta.
A 22-member strong Polish business team is in Jakarta to participate in the 33rd Trade Expo Indonesia, which was opened by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday at ICE BSD, Tangerang, Banten.
According to the Indonesian Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, the Polish business delegation consists of 10 companies mostly from the renewable energy, maritime and mining sectors. It was the Indonesian Embassy in Poland that brought the Polish business delegation.
The Polish companies that came to Jakarta to participate in the Trade Expo Indonesia are Flextrip Sp. Z.o.o, Easy Work Polska, Potenejal Biznesu, Kala, Loka Sp. Z.o.o, Symbiona, Sefako, Rafako S.A., Fluid Company, Caritas Polska, Ekotech and Aqua Life.
Indonesia has been enjoying a huge trade surplus with Poland for many years.
“Trade has been in our favor for many years. Poland mainly imports plastic, paper, palm oil, coffee and tea from Indonesia while Indonesia imports machines, mining equipment and agricultural products from Poland,” Rudy Kurniady, minister counselor at the Indonesian Embassy in Poland, told the Post.
Many Polish companies, according to Ambassador Beata, are already operating in Indonesia.
“We have some Polish companies that are doing very good in Indonesia. For example, Inglot, a famous cosmetics company, is very popular in Indonesia. But many people in Indonesia do not know that Inglot is a Polish company,” Beata said.
Many Polish companies want to do business with Indonesia.
“We are already present here. We want to sell our technology to Indonesia to produce power from biomass. The raw material is from the palm oil industry. Using our technology, we can produce energy from the waste from the palm oil industry,” Lukasz Pietrzkiewicz from Fluid, a Polish energy company, told the Post.
Emphasizing the potential of the Indonesian market, a Polish wastewater treatment company executive said that his company would soon enter the Indonesian market.
“We will enter the Indonesian market soon. We are currently based in Malaysia. We provide the technology to treat wastewater,” said Krzysztof (Chris) Grzybowski, managing director of Symbiona.
Another water treatment company that specializes in desalination of water is also present in Indonesia.
“We offer the highest quality technology for desalination of water at an affordable price,” Andrzej Jakubowski, a representative of Aqua Life, told the Post.
Ambassador Beata is also focusing on increasing cooperation in the education sector.
“We would like to cooperate more in the education sector. We offer scholarships to Indonesian students every year,” Beata said.
Echoing a similar view, Rudy said that Poland has very high-quality universities.
“Poland has very good universities, especially in medicine. Several hundred Indonesian students are currently studying in Polish universities. The education in Poland is affordable and it is high quality,” Rudy said.
In the people-to-people contacts, Polish people are showing a lot of interest in Indonesia.
“Last year, we had 32,000 Polish tourists visiting Indonesia, a huge increase from 15,000 four years ago. Indonesian Ambassador to Poland Peter F. Gontha launched a series of programs in Poland to promote Indonesia as a major tourism destination,” Rudy said.
Ambassador Beata is optimistic that both Poland and Indonesia will embark on a new era by enhancing existing economic ties in the years to come.
