Indonesia And South Korea Set Off A Wave Of Economic And Trade Cooperation

The economic and trade cooperation between Indonesia and South Korea has been strengthened recently. With the recent visit to South Korea by the senior economic and trade delegation led by the Minister of Economic Coordination of Indonesia Hada, and the subsequent attendance of South Korean President Park Geun hye at the APEC Summit in Bali and a state visit to Indonesia, the two sides set off a wave of economic and trade cooperation.

After the talks between President Susilo and Park Geun hye on October 12, the two countries signed agreements on the establishment of Korean enterprise special industrial zones and cooperation in forestry, tourism and creative economy. The two sides said that they would strive to increase the bilateral annual trade volume from the current 30 billion dollars to 50 billion dollars and 100 billion dollars by 2015 and 2020, respectively. On the 13th, the central banks of the two countries signed a three-year currency swap agreement with a total amount of US $10 billion, and the business circles of the two countries signed cooperation agreements on projects such as natural gas, oil, shale gas development, biofuel power generation and coal-fired power plant construction with a total amount of about US $1 billion. PLN also signed a memorandum of understanding on power construction loans with the Export Import Bank of Korea, and the ROK will provide unsecured loans with simple procedures for Jambi 2 × Construction of 200 MW coal fired power station and Aceh 2 × 200 MW coal-fired power plant expansion project.

Park Geun hye said in her speech at the "India South Korea Business Investment Forum Luncheon" that in order to promote the further development of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, the two countries should sign the "Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" as soon as possible, expanding the scope of bilateral economic and trade cooperation from traditional agriculture, forestry and other industries to shipbuilding, petrochemical, information technology, environmental protection, automotive, creative technology and military industries.

In addition, the two sides also talked about the construction project of the Sunda Strait Bridge. Park Geun hye said that the ROK intended to finance the construction of the bridge and the surrounding regional economic zone up to 20 billion dollars. It is reported that South Korea invested about 1.9 billion dollars in Indonesia in 2012, making it Indonesia's third largest investment partner after Singapore and Japan.