VENTURES AFRICA – Former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, arrived yesterday in Jakarta for a two-day visit intended to facilitate closer cooperation between the political and business communities of Indonesia and Nigeria.
Mr. Obasanjo visits in his capacity as a special business and investment envoy for the Nigerian government. The first engagement on his itinerary will be a breakfast meeting with Aburizal Bakrie, Chairman of the conservative Golkar Party. Subsequently, a delegation of Indonesia’s leading businessmen will accompany Mr. Obasanjo to state of the art manufacturing facilities in Java.
From there, Mr. Obasanjo will take part in a site visit to plantations acreage in the Sumatera area followed by a with mining operators to be held at the Kaltim Prima coal mining site in Sangata, East Kalimantan.
Mr. Obasanjo’s visit to Indonesia follows a similar visit to Nigeria in December 2011 by a group of Indonesian businessmen led by Indra Bakrie from the Bakrie Group as well as a selection of former Indonesian statesmen.
Ladi Delano, Chief Executive Officer of Bakrie Delano Africa, the investment platform of the Bakrie Group in Nigeria, and who has played a core role in arranging Mr. Obasanjo’s visit, commented:
“The two countries are ideal partners in several different ways. Economically, Nigeria is where Indonesia was 25 years ago and because of this Nigeria can learn a lot from Indonesia. The backbone of Indonesia’s growth over this time has been strong levels of domestic consumption, which has created many jobs, and the responsible management of foreign direct investment via its Ministry of Trade. Nigeria’s creation last year of its own Ministry of Trade and Investment is evidence that it is already heading on the right track.
My desire is for a strong, strategic partnership to be formed between the business and political communities of both countries, with the Bakrie Group playing a central role in this collaboration and this visit being the platform for even deeper ties.”
Akin to Indonesia’s status in Asia, Nigeria is one of the largest, richest and most advanced economies in the African continent and has the potential for high levels of domestic growth, despite the fragilities of the wider world economy.
As well as citing Nigeria’s potential to follow Indonesia’s path of industrialisation and domestic job creation over the last 25 years, Mr. Delano recalled the historic Asia-Africa Conference held in Bandung, West Java in 1955 as symbolic of Indonesia as host to, and business partner of, a leading African nation.
“Indonesia was the place where Asia and Africa once shared the oath to balance the world’s struggle with spirit of independence, cooperation, as well as economic and social development. I hope this is history repeating itself. Not only can the two nations’ cooperation be significantly mutually beneficial, it can act as an inspiration for other Asian and African countries to follow suit.”
