RI-UK To Collaborate In Four Key Areas

Jakarta, Sept 18 (Antara) - The Indonesian and United Kingdom governments are focusing on ramping up cooperation in four areas that are expected to boost Indonesia`s economic development, including its infrastructure construction. "We received many inputs from the U.K. government`s representative, mainly related to infrastructure construction that can contribute to our development," Indonesia`s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa stated during a joint press conference held with the U.K. envoy His Excellency (HE) Prince Andrew, on Wednesday. Hatta further said that the collaborative efforts between the two countries will focus on four areas, namely infrastructure, food security, energy and manufacturing. "Infrastructure in terms of connectivity will highlight the importance of improving the quality of our services. A discussion on international ports seems to be the main focus, especially given the fact that our airports are always experiencing delays, which causes many aircraft to queue up," he said. According to Hatta, Indonesia has designed international airports, which will have the capacity to handle more than 60 million passengers with a 10 percent passenger growth per year. The second area for collaboration will be related to food security, where Hatta said the government planned on enhancing its domestic consumption ability in order to reduce its reliance on imports. "Prince Andrew has promised to help us use a technological approach to improve productivity, which is not based on the expansion of new cultivation fields," he noted. The third area for cooperation is energy, which will help boost the volume of renewable energy on small islands located in Indonesia marine areas. "If we build the power plants on the main islands, such as the Java Island, it would be costly to distribute it to the smaller islands and to build an electrical transmission system," he pointed out. Focusing on the creation of renewable energy, such as solar, wind or geothermal energy were being considered as the proper solution for small islands in order to create energy efficiency, Hatta added. The last area for cooperation relates to the manufacturing sector that will focus on the downstream and result in reducing a dependence on imported raw materials. Hatta said that 75 per cent of the exports were contributed by the manufacturing sector, but the industry`s need for auxiliary materials from the sector had touched 76 percent. "Our growing industry needs imported raw materials and we should find a solution for this problem," Hatta said. He further elaborated that besides these four areas, Indonesia and the U.K. will also collaborate in the healthcare field in relation to a Biopharma vaccine that was currently running. At the conference, Prince Andrew declared the cooperation forged over time between the U.K. and Indonesia a success. "We`re improving cooperation with Indonesia in various areas and activities, such as food resilience and energy efficiency, which has made the Indonesia-U.K. business more attractive," he stated. Prince Andrew also said that he would ensure that such cooperation did not remain limited to Jakarta alone, but also extended to some other provinces.