Initiated by the Indonesian Embassy to New Zealand, the Pacific Exposition aims to showcase the top commodities and investment potential of Pacific countries. The event, held in Auckland from Thursday to Sunday, is supported by New Zealand and Australia.

“We are part of the Pacific, so there is no harm [in hosting the event] and it is imperative that we should strengthen our bonds, our brotherhood and our cooperation with the Pacific countries, which face many challenges geographically,” Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said on Thursday.

She said the expo followed up on the Indonesia-South Pacific Forum (ISPF) held in Jakarta in March, the first-ever engagement of Indonesia with other South Pacific countries to talk about how they could work together.

While the ISPF was attended by representatives from 15 countries, 123 companies from all 20 Pacific countries would present themselves at this year’s Pacific expo, according to Retno. She said she expected the meeting to lead to more concrete cooperation, especially on tourism, trade and investment.

Indonesian Ambassador to New Zealand Tantowi Yahya said holding the event in Auckland allowed more people from Pacific countries to participate, because Auckland was more easily accessible from the Pacific countries than Jakarta.

On the sidelines of the event on Thursday, Retno held a meeting with the seven Indonesian ambassadors — including nonresident ambassadors — in charge of relations with the 20 Pacific countries. Among them were the Indonesian ambassadors to New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Philippines.

She ordered the ambassadors to help speed up the process of opening honorary consul offices in Pacific countries where Indonesia has no embassy, an approach Indonesia has tested in Africa.

“We agreed that we need to be present [in all Pacific countries], but, of course, opening embassies has financial consequences, among other things. But we cannot afford to have no presence in these countries,” she said.

On Thursday, a seminar on tourism was also held as a part of the expo — during which Tourism Minister Arief Yahya proposed cooperation with South Pacific countries under the motto “One Pacific Destination”.

He said Indonesia and South Pacific nations should collaborate in creating tourism packages that include trips to several countries — a scheme that has been done in other regions, such as Latin America, Scandinavia and Europe.

Arief said the South Pacific nations could model the ASEAN single-destination scheme laid out in the 2016-2025 ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan. He claimed the program had been effective in developing tourism in the ASEAN region.

“I hope this [tourism] discussion will soon be followed up by devising strategies and efforts to realize our common aspirations,” he said.

Chris Cocker of the South Pacific Tourism Organization said while the tourism sector continued to grow, challenges remained, including a lack of access and expertise, inadequate infrastructure and insufficient marketing funds.

“There is also a high vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change impacts,” he added.

Costly airfares, particularly since there were no direct international flights to and from Tuvalu, were one of the main challenges faced by Tuvalu, according to its tourism minister, Taukelina Finikaso.

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