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As partners in democracy, Indonesia, UK eye closer economic, security ties
The Jakarta Post sat down with visiting United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to discuss what lay ahead in UK-Indonesia relations.
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Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi (right) and United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss pose for photographers as they meet in Jakarta on Thursday. The Jakarta visit was part of Truss’ Southeast Asian tour. (AFP/Handout)
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ritish Foreign Secretary Liz Truss visited Indonesia on Thursday and Friday on her last stop in a tour of Southeast Asia that aims to boost the United Kingdom’s economic and security ties with the region. The Jakarta Post’s Dian Septiari met with her to discuss the UK’s priorities for its relationship with Indonesia. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Question: What are the UK’s priorities in increasing trade with and investment in Indonesia?
Answer: We've had a positive meeting, first with President [Joko “Jokowi”] Widodo and also with Foreign Minister Retno [Marsudi], to talk about agreeing on a road map between the UK and Indonesia by the end of this year, and that would include all sorts of areas, including trade and investment, technology and security.
What we want to do on the investment side is massively increase the amount of investment going from the UK into Indonesia. So that's both government-backed investment and private sector investment, and there are lots of opportunities [for cooperation], i.e. green energy and wind power, life sciences and pharmaceuticals and also areas like technology.
I've just met a whole group of Gojek riders, which is a fantastic company. It's a decacorn, a US$10 billion company here in Indonesia, and the UK is third in the world for its number of unicorns after the US and China. We want to work more with Indonesia to get that two-way trade going, particularly in areas like digital.
On trade, there's going to be a JETCO – a joint economic trade committee – early next year and that essentially will provide a pathway towards a future free trade agreement, so we want to deepen the trade and investment links.
Indonesia is a key priority for the United Kingdom. We're both democracies; we are both real centers of tech expertise; we both believe in green energy, so there's this huge opportunity for more two-way trade investment and in this road map that we are going to agree to by the end of this year, we'll set out the details of exactly how that's going to happen.
