Australia is kicking off big promo

JAKARTA (JP): Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Gareth Evans and Coordinating Minister for Industry and Trade Hartarto launched Australia's biggest ever trade and cultural promotion program, Australia Today Indonesia 94, last night.

The A$12 million (US$8.8 million) event was opened at the National Museum with the sounding of a gong by Hartarto and the cutting of a string of flowers by Evans.

The Australian jazz band Ten Part Invention and theater group Stretch MK1 performed in the center court.

Photos, paintings, glass sculptures and unique Aboriginal fabrics were among the various items exhibited around the grounds, which were artistically lighted by bamboo oil lamps.

Evans in his opening speech explained that the ATI mascot, the "bionic kangaroo" Techno Joe, which lined the foreground of the museum, represents Australia both as a big country with strange and exotic animals and a nation that is developing some of the world's most innovative technology.

Events of the ATI 94 -- ranging from business, education, law and political conferences, a 200-member trade mission, trade exhibitions, sport programs and naval visits to arts and entertainment presentations -- will take place from June 14 to July 3. Some of the programs will also go beyond this period.

ATI 94 will showcase the Australia of the 1990s, "a nation that is multiculturally diverse, culturally sophisticated and technologically advanced, as well as free thinking, vibrant and alive," Evans said.

He acknowledged the rapid changes which have taken place in both countries over the past 10 years and pointed out that currently both "no longer feel trapped by that twist of fate which made us geographically close but in every way very different...but is now replaced by a new cooperation and trust".

Incomplete

Quoting Prime Minister Paul Keating in Sydney three months ago, Evans said no country is more important to Australia than Indonesia. "If we fail to get this relationship right...the whole web of our foreign relations is incomplete."

Keating himself is slated to come to Jakarta to lend further credence to the program. His June 26-27 visit will also be his third to Indonesia in the last 18 months.

Evans said there was still much to be done in promoting contact and understanding at the crucial business-to-business and people-to-people levels.

He cited, for example, a stereotyped image of Australia held by many Indonesians that Australia still exercises a white Australia policy. "We buried the policy a generation ago, but surveys show most Indonesians still think we have a discriminatory immigration policy."

"But we have to communicate that new reality," he said.

Evans also pointed out that most Indonesians are not aware that Australia is a modern and advanced country, "this despite the fact that we are the third biggest economy in the whole Asian region and that Australia and New Zealand together have a greater national income than all six ASEANs combined".

Mutual event

Evans emphasized that ATI 94, which involves about 500 Australian organizations and 1,500 individuals, is a mutual event and an opportunity for two-way communication and interaction, as it exposes many business people, opinion leaders, scientists, artists, journalists and sports people to one another.

Hartarto expressed his optimism that the event will contribute significantly to bilateral cooperation in almost all respects.

Hartarto, who is also Patron for ATI 94, explained that Indonesia's new deregulation package, announced last week, is expected to encourage more foreign investment in Indonesia.

"It has been our determination to continually improve our economic climate and with the new deregulation package announced last week, I expect more Australian investment to flow to Indonesia," he said.

Trade volume between the two countries reached US$2.17 billion last year, with Indonesian exports to Australia valued at $773 million and Indonesian imports from Australia at $1.39 billion.

The volume of Australian investment from 1967 to 1994 reached $1.50 billion, from 140 projects.

Evans was in Indonesia for only 9 hours. He left Jakarta after the ceremony. (pwn)

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