House Vice Speaker Rachmat Gobel (left) attends a function with PM Yoshihide Suga and Japan alumni students from Indonesia in Jakarta, Wednesday, (21/10/2020). Photo : Rifky/Man

House of Representatives Vice Speaker believes that the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to Indonesia is more than a regular state visit. It also delivers a special message in maintaining the two countries’ 62 years of cooperation. The visit is a reminder for the government not to forget Japan’s strategic role in building geopolitics, harmony and world economy with partner countries.

“Suga’s visit to Indonesia delivers a strong and strategic message from Japan to its partners in ASEAN, including Indonesia. Whoever the leader, Japan has always put effort into building a warm relation. Japan holds a commitment to be present as the strongest partner for ASEAN, especially for Indonesia’s political and economic stability at regional and global levels,” said Gobel.

Gobel went on to say that the Indonesian government, along with related institutions and business people, must seek to interpret the commitment. The 62 years of Indonesia-Japan cooperation has made sustainable contributions to Indonesia’s development in many sectors. “Apart from being the biggest foreign investors in oil and gas and non-oil and gas industries, Japan plays a crucial role in human resources’ development,” explained the House Vice Speaker, Coordinator for Industry and Development.

After PM Suga’s visit, Gobel hoped that the commitment can extensively improve cooperation of Indonesia and Japan in various sectors. His optimism is reflected in the data released by Jetro on economic performance growth in Indonesia that showed a significant increase. According to the data, the total investment of Japanese companies in the last ten years up to 2018 reached US$ 31 billion in industry, infrastructures, and service sectors.

Meanwhile, export contribution of Japanese companies to Indonesia’s total export to the world’s market reached 24.4 percent. Those companies have created employment to 7.2 million people, and nearly 90 percent of Japanese companies in Indonesia provide training to more than 50.000 workers and professionals. In addition, a Japanese company in the infrastructure sector is building a power plant with 17 Gigawatt capacity.

In the field of human resources development, a yearly survey conducted by Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) showed that the number of Indonesian students studying in Japan has doubled in the last five years to 6,277 students in 2018. That number, however, was still way beyond Vietnam that sent 72,345 students in 2018, considering the country has only 96 million population.

Gobel said that PM Suga’s visit to Indonesia would open up great opportunities for Indonesian economic actors in various sectors, such as finance, trade, manufacturing industry, and infrastructure. The opportunities are not only for the expansion of existing collaborations, but also the establishment of new ones with the Japanese businessmen joining the visit.

“The visit gives us the opportunity to see at first hand the development and result of Indonesia-Japan cooperation in various sectors, including the progress on infrastructure projects funded by Japan. This should be used to explore new various opportunities. I hope that this visit can calibrate our hearts in line with Fukuda Doctrine, allowing this relationship to become even stronger,” he said.

The politician from National Democrat Party (Nasdem) hoped that related government institutions continuously maintain their good relations by ensuring fair regulations for all Indonesian partner countries, including Japan, bearing in mind the development of industry and information technology will continuously grow rapidly in the future.

“As long as the relations with all traditional strategic partner countries are developed in a fair manner, we are hopeful that the increased investment value and the investment quality will have the ability to strengthen the national economic structure and face various challenges in the era of 4.0 industry, including realizing Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision rolled out by President Jokowi,” concluded Gobel.