Mari to visit Turkey, Egypt and Iran

Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Trade Mari E. Pangestu is to lead a delegation that will visit Turkey, Egypt and Iran next week, aiming to bolster bilateral relations in the areas of trade, investment, technology and the handling of the illegal trade in narcotics.

The ministry's director general for international trade cooperation Herry Soetanto said the trip, which will run June 15- 22, aimed to form bilateral joint commissions with each of the three countries. Mari would also sign a number protocols and MOUs with her counterparts.

"Aside from signing the MOUs, she will also conduct bilateral talks as well as meet with the local private sector," Herry said on Tuesday.

In Turkey, Mari is scheduled to sign at least three protocols and MOUs: a cooperation protocol between the National Agency for Export Development (Nafed) and Turkey's trade promotion agency; a protocol on technical cooperation between both countries' standardization institutions; and a cooperation agreement between the Batam Free Trade Zone authority with Turkey's FTZ development agency.

In Egypt, meanwhile, the two countries will finalize a draft of an MOU for cooperation in animal health and quarantine.

In Iran, the trade minister is expected to sign four MOUs on cooperation in customs and narcotics trade prevention, a framework agreement on comprehensive trade and economic partnership, and on promoting investment.

Herry said the relationships were still at the level of boosting bilateral trade and investment, and were still a long way from forming bilateral free trade relationships.

Earlier this year, the ministry revealed that the nation's businesspeople were somewhat reluctant to expand their businesses into the Middle East and Africa.

It said big firms in the country considered the cost of shipping goods to Africa uneconomical considering the small market size. Meanwhile, for small and medium enterprises, Africa was too far away, making it economically unfeasible.

"Trade with Africa has not been a priority in the past given the small volume of trade, lack of information and familiarity, distance, lack of direct transportation links and lack of supporting facilities, such as trade financing," Mari said.

But she said the government had started to facilitate a partnership with the private sector to overcome these obstacles by providing more information, conducting market research and encouraging the pooling of exports in order to produce a viable volume of trade.

The Middle East is a highly potential source for investment capital.

Only recently, a group of Middle East investors, spearheaded by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), said that they were considering investing in the nation's 10 agricultural priority projects, which the government had put on offer in its recent visit to the oil-rich region, to the tune of US$1.57 billion.