Indonesia eyes better India connect

PUNE: Indonesia will revive direct air connectivity with key Indian cities by the beginning of next year as part of its effort to increase tourism, trade and people-to-people contact between the two nations, said Indonesia's consul general Saut Siringoringo on Thursday.
“To start with, Indonesia's national-carrier Garuda plans to operate direct flights between Jakarta and Delhi, Bali and Mumbai,“ Siringoringo said, adding that the governments of the two countries agreed long time back on the revival of direct flights.
On a three-day visit to Pune for promoting trade and tourism, Siringoringo spoke exclusively to the TOI on various issues, including the vast potential for bilateral trade and greater exchange in the fields of health, education and tourism. He was accompanied by Indonesian consul (economics) Hariyan ta Soetarto, vice consul (economics) Siti Fatimah and consul Pratiwi Amperawati.
Connectivity and visa fee were two major issues in terms of promoting Indonesia among Indian tourists, he said. “Apart from visa on arrival, we have waived the $35 per individual visa fee for Indian tourists. Once we open direct flights, we should have better promotions,“ Siringoringo said. Between January and September 2015, a total of 1.97 lakh Indian tourists visited Indonesia as against 2.37 lakh tourists in 2014. There is potential for further increase, he added.
Two weeks ago, a 120 member delegation of Indian businessmen on a visit to the southeast Asian nation, had a meeting with the president of Garuda Indonesia and the issue of air connectivity was also taken up with the Indonesian Ambassador in India. “Garuda has shown willingness to allocate two aircraft besides operating chartered services till the time a formal air ink is put in place,“ he said.
“Our emphasis is not only on attracting Indian investment in Indonesia but also encouraging Indonesian investment in India through greater people-to-people contact,“ Siringoringo said, while candidly observing that Indone sia was behind other countries like Singapore and Malaysia in dealing with India. “We have a strong, sentimental and historical relation with India which needs to be developed further,“ he added.
Siringoringo and his team visited Mahindra & Mahindra plant in Chakan on Wednesday and were due for a visit to Savitribai Phule Pune University and Symbiosis University besides meetings with Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture and representatives of airlines and travel agents. As of now, nine Indonesian companies have set up their base in western and southern India, including poultry feed and breeding company Japfacomfeed in Pune.
He said cities like Pune have much to offer in terms of agriculture, health and education besides valuable human resource for Indonesia's fledgling information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services industries. “As of now, on y 3% of Indonesian students are going abroad for higher studies. We want this number to grow and our visit to Pune university is to explore the available opportunities,“ he said while identifying areas such as joint research, vocational and engineering education, teachers education in primary and secondary sectors for bilateral exchange.
Referring to trade, Siringoringo said, Indonesia-India bilateral trade stood at $17 billion in 2014 which was way behind the bilateral trade with China at $80 billion. “Our target was to achieve $25 billion trade with India in 2015, but that seems unlikely now owing to factors such as lower trading on coal and palm oil,“ he said.
“The new government in Indonesian has put a major thrust on the development of maritime infrastructure considering that the country is an archipelago made up of several islands. Automobiles, agriculture, energy and creative industry are other focus areas,“ Siringoringo added.