Vice President Jusuf Kalla here, Tuesday said that the improvement of bilateral relations will open up opportunities of economic cooperation between Indonesia and its partner countries, especially the IORA members.
Kalla added countries such as Tanzania, Somalia and India have invited the Indonesian government to visit them, while Singapore plans to increase its investment in Indonesia.
"The point is, we have to build relationship with two ways, politics and economic policies. In addition, we must help countries like Somalia that is hitting by famine," Kalla said.
On Tuesday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla has had some bilateral meetings with several IORA member countries, including Oman, India, Somalia, Tanzania and Singapore to discuss the improvement of cooperation with partner countries.
In the context of IORA, the government plans to open up new markets to increase national exports.
African market, for instance, has potential of US$550 billion in 2016, yet the realization of Indonesias exports to the region only reaches US$4.2 billion.
Another potential market is Middle East, reaching US$975 billion.
The IORA intra-regional trade in 2015 reached US$777 billion, up 300 percent compared to that in 1994, amounted to US$233 billion.
Seventy percent of the world trade lines passing through the Indian Ocean, including the oil and gas distribution lines. In fact, more than half of the containers and two-thirds of the oil tankers from around the world pass through the region.
The IORA includes approximately 2.7 billion people or 35 percent of the worlds population. However, its role only 12 percent of world market share, ten percent of global GDP, and 13 percent of foreign investment destination.
(KR-LWA/b003/B003)
(T.SYS/B/KR-BSR/B003)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
