HCM City seeks comprehensive ties with Indonesian partners

Jakarta (VNA) – A high-ranking delegation of Ho Chi Minh City has met with officials of ministries, sectors and startups of Indonesia to discuss cooperation chances in various fields.

That was part of their trip to the nation from August 21 to 24.

At the working session with Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan on August 23, Politburo member and Secretary of the HCM City Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan noted with satisfaction that the Vietnam-Indonesia strategic partnership has continued developing intensively.

He said the working visit by the delegation of HCM City, the biggest economic hub of Vietnam, aims to help carry out the action programme implementing the strategic partnership for 2019-2023.

To keep enhancing bilateral relations, he suggested both countries co-organise an ASEAN forum on sustainable urban development. This event can focus on climate change response in big cities in Southeast Asia, transportation development in big cities, and cooperation in supporting small businesses.

Nhan said it is necessary to expand both air and sea transport connectivity so as to facilitate bilateral trade and investment cooperation.

Sharing Indonesia’s development strategy, Minister Pandjaitan said his country is stepping up the development of human resources, infrastructure, sea-based economy and navigation.

He highly valued the HCM City leader’s proposals, adding that Indonesia is ready to cooperate with the Vietnamese city to deal with the challenges facing both sides such as those in infrastructure and urban development, climate change response and tourism.

Also on August 23, the HCM City delegation paid a courtesy call to Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan. 

The two sides discussed issues of common concern like economic development, startup, transport planning, flooding prevention, and climate change response. They also looked into the possibility of setting up a cooperative relationship between HCM City and Jakarta.

Besides, the visiting officials had a working session with Go-Jek, the most valuable startup – worth 10 billion USD – in Indonesia. This company has been present in Vietnam since 2018 with the brand GoViet.

On August 21 and 22, the delegation had meetings with representatives of the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning, the National Resilience Institute and the University of Indonesia. They also visited the public transport management and operating system of Jakarta, and listened to Dutch experts sharing the cooperation model between Indonesia and the Netherlands in an anti-flood dyke project in Jakarta.

On the occasion of the visit, the HCM City People’s Committee held a conference to attract Indonesia’s investment to the city.

According to Vice Chairman of the committee Vo Van Hoan, Indonesia has invested in 39 projects worth nearly 30 million USD in HCM City, ranking 34th among the 106 countries and territories investing there. Trade between the city and Indonesia reached 1.3 billion USD in 2018 and 654 million USD in the first seven months of 2019.

He said he believes that HCM City will be an attractive investment and business destination for enterprises and investors from Indonesia, especially in the fields they have strength like high technology, services and finance. -VNA