German govt honors Soni

JAKARTA: The president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Roman Herzog, has conferred the Order of Merit on State Minister of Agrarian Affairs Soni Harsono.

The German embassy said in its statement yesterday the medal and shoulder belt was the highest honor that could be awarded to a minister from a foreign country.

Soni, also chairman of the National Land Agency, had given valuable contributions to relations between Germany and Indonesia, the German embassy said.

The statement said Soni, chairman of the German Alumni Association that he founded in 1991, had been most effective in the fields of energy, infrastructure, the environment and telecommunications.

He has been a dialog partner for many German economic and political delegations to Indonesia seeking to forge deeper ties, and an important figure in the Indonesia-Germany Forum for Technology and Economics. (01)