Indonesia to increase cooperation with Central Asian coutries
May 19th, 2008
Beijing (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has been active in approacing Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in an effort to increase cooperation with the Central Asian countries, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said.
“The three countries are economically very dynamic and Indonesia has the interest to increase cooperation and expand bilateral ties with them,” the foreign minister said here Saturday.
He said that Indonesia would increase cooperation with the three Central Asian nations not only in the political field but also in the economic, trade, investment, tourism, cocial and cultural sectors.
The foreign minister made the remarks during his stop over here after visiting the three Central Asian nations. During the visit, he was accompanied by 17 national businessmen.
Hassan Wirajuda after the stop over continued his trip to Singapre where he would attend an ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting to discuss humanitarian aid for Myanmar.
The 17 business makers who joined the foreign minisster dueing his visit to the three nations were doing business, among others, in the enegy, oil, gas, telecommunications, general trade and banking sectors.
The minister said his visit to the three countries was strategic and was important for expanding diplomatic ties which had been running well so far.
He said that the visit was welcome by the governments of the three states and the respective parties saw big potentials on which they could establish mutually beneficial cooperations.
“The three countries have gained progresses with an economic growth ranging from 10 to 30 percent,” the foreign minister said.
He said that Kazakhstan, for example, could be said as the `Emirate` of Central Asia as it kept a large oil reserve and it had transformed a number of its cities to become modern ones.
The minister said that the contraint faced so far in the tourism sector betetween them was the inexistence of direct flights from those countries to Jakarta.
The three cities are so far covered by flights from Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. “I hope that the flights would be connected to Jakarta so that tourists from the Central Asian countries would be visiting Indonesia,” he added. (*)
Source: ANTARA News
Entry Filed under: World Tourism News
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