"Indonesia and Xi`an City have a lot of opportunities for increasing bilateral cooperation, among other things in the tourism sector," Xi`an Wei Minzhu, the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, said when receiving Indonesian Ambassador to China and Mongolia Imron Cotan here on Saturday.
"Xi`an City has many interesting tourism destinations. With a long history and different local cultures, Xi`an is one of China`s tourism destination regions which is worth visiting," Wei Minzhu said.
He said that Indonesia also had many interesting regions for tourists such as Bali. It also had abundant natural wealth and beauty.
Therefore, Indonesia and Xi`an share the opportunities to cooperate in the tourism sector, he said.
On the occasion, Wei Minzhu said as one of the industrial hub cities in China, the Xi`an city government also invited Indonesian businessmen to make investment in various sectors, apart from the tourism field, in Xi`an.
"Xi`an has various investment opportunities for investors from foreign countries, including Indonesia. It among others offers opportunities in the manufacturing and electronic sectors," he said.
In the meantime, Indonesian Ambassador Imron Caton said Indonesia had since long ago taken Xi`an as a place for its research on China.
"Xi`an has been undergoing a great development. We hope that Indonesia and Xi`an could continue to develop good and broad cooperation in the trade, investment, tourism and other sectors," the Indonesian ambassador said.
Imron said that Indonesia could learn a lot and establish cooperation in many fields, including tourism, with Xi`an because it had a long history where Xi`an `controls` China for about 1,100 years.
The number of Chinese tourist arrivals in Indonesia reached 850 thousands in 2012, up 14 percent from those in 2011. In 2013, Indonesia hopes to receive one million tourists from China.
(A014/F001)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
