And while his government undoubtedly has its eyes set on the money, the President will likely come away with the even bigger prize of a close friendship with one of the richest and most influential countries in the Gulf region.

The government reported on Thursday that it had secured US$32.7 billion worth of investment commitments in various sectors, such as vaccine manufacturing and distribution, from UAE businesses.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said the 19 investment commitment deals involved cooperation between the Indonesian Investment Authority (INA) and Dubai-based multinational logistics company DP World.

State-owned oil giant Pertamina is also expected to ink a deal on floating solar panels with Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar.

Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence company G42 is also expected to invest in smart city initiatives, telecommunications and genomics laboratories. G42 visited Indonesia in September to meet its partners.

Indonesia and the UAE also agreed to speed up talks on a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA). After several rounds of negotiations that started in September, Jokowi expects the deal to be finalized as early as March next year.

The CEPA negotiations are part of the UAE’s aggressive attempt to open markets in fast-growing economies such as South Korea, Kenya, Ethiopia and Turkey.

With international travel set to rebound, both countries also agreed to the mutual recognition of vaccine certificates and integrate pandemic-protection travel platforms to strengthen the travel corridor arrangement (TCA) that had been in place since July 2020.

“For the government-to-government [cooperation], there will be 10 agreements,” Retno said in an online press briefing on Thursday.

“[They include] investment promotion, taxation, cooperation between central banks, mutual recognition of vaccines and digital platforms to facilitate mobility, tourism, ship crew certification and training, and diplomatic training, as well as mangrove forest management.”

Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the government was seeking to secure more than $35 billion worth of commitments from UAE businesses. The minister will meet with more investors at an investment forum in Dubai.

“We hope we can raise [the number of investment commitments] to more than $32.7 billion tomorrow [Friday],” Bahlil said at the press briefing, referring to the investment forum in Dubai.

Indonesia’s goods exports to UAE actually accounted for less than 1 percent of the total exports in September, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows. Of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) realization in the third quarter of 2021, the UAE also accounted for a very small fraction, with just $5.8 million realized, Investment Ministry data shows.

Fithra Faisal, an economist at the University of Indonesia (UI), said the UAE’s small share in Indonesia’s exports and direct investment made the country a potential nontraditional market to tap, especially as both countries were predominantly Muslim.

“We are pursuing potential in the future, not just existing [trade and investment],” Fithra told The Jakarta Post in a phone interview on Thursday. “We are expecting to raise services activities because the UAE is good at this.”

Read also: UAE AI company Group 42 looking to invest in Indonesia

The business deals have been the main attraction for Jokowi, who chose to go to the UAE as his first bilateral destination since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fresh from high-profile stopovers at the Group of 20 Summit in Italy and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Scotland earlier in the week, he chose to visit a country that has been highly receptive to his trade and investment agenda.

Even so, the deals are but one aspect of Indonesia’s blossoming relationship with the oil-rich Gulf state.

Upon his arrival in Abu Dhabi, the President met with the crown prince and invited him to be his guest of honor at the G20 Summit in Bali next year.

Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, more widely known by his initials MBZ, in turn, showered Jokowi with flattery, including by naming a road after him. A reciprocal gesture was made by naming the second stretch of the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road after the crown prince.

Jokowi visited the street on Wednesday after the meeting at Al-Shati Palace. MBZ also built a 3,766-square-meter mosque on the same street, also named after Jokowi.

The naming rituals reflect a “very harmonious” relationship between Indonesia and the UAE in recent years, with Indonesian Ambassador to UAE Husin Bagis saying that the relationship was Jakarta’s “most comfortable, most intimate in the world”.

He described the leaders’ frequent communication, including “phone calls every month or two” and frequent visits. Wednesday’s visit was Jokowi’s third to Abu Dhabi, his first one being in 2015 and the second in early 2020. MBZ visited Jokowi in 2019.

The two leaders also discussed Jokowi’s ambitious project to build a new capital city in East Kalimantan, for which the crown prince is one of its important foreign contributors.

“The two leaders agreed to follow up on the matter intensively at the technical level,” Retno said.

Yon Machmudi, a scholar from UI's Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, said relations between the two countries had intensified in recent years primarily because their goals matched up.

“The UAE itself has set its sights on foreign policy in Asia, [...] while Indonesia is actively seeking investments [...] in the Middle East,” he told the Post on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the close personal relationship between the leaders reflects a broader trend among Middle Easterners in their dealings with business partners, Yon said.

“Relations with Arab countries are always personal; when the relationship is close like that of a family, then it is no longer formal and the potential for cooperation, [...] especially in the economic field, gets stronger,” he said.

Indonesia’s cordial relationship with the fourth-largest economy in the Middle East can be traced back to a time when a previous attempt to court another Arab monarch fell flat. Jokowi rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 2017, only to be disappointed by the modest investments of the kingdom.

“Jokowi may find that he has ‘clicked’ with MBZ more than with the Saudis, who already have many strategic partners,” Yon said.