"Indonesia has technical cooperation program to assist other developing nations as we have large assets and experiences in developing ecotourism," Director General of Public Information and Diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry Andri Hadi said here on Wednesday.
Speaking at a meeting on International Training Program on Ecotourism for Pacific Countries, he said as a donor country, Indonesia had played a role in the area of capacity building and technical cooperation diplomacy.
"The assistance is given to developing countries in the South Pacific countries to develop their ecotourism as well as to deal with climate change," he said.
The assistance was part of the efforts to forge bilateral relations with South Pacific countries, he said.
"The training program in Yogyakarta marks the start of the cooperation. Yogyakarta has been chosen to host the training because it has a center for ecotourism studies," he said.
The ecotourism training held by the ministry in cooperation with the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) was participated in by 10 South Pacific countries, he said.
"The training is aimed at sharing our experience (with the South Pacific countries) in managing ecotourism potentials. I hope it will also serve as a forum to exchange experience in synergizing cooperation to develop ecotourism," he said.
The training included development of ecotourism in the Pacific region and climate change and its impact on tourism industry.(*)
(S012/HAJM/a014)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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