Fujian is one of the important starting points of the ancient Chinese Maritime Silk Road, and Indonesia is an important node of the Maritime Silk Road. Because of this ancient Maritime Silk Road, Fujian and Indonesia have established friendship and jointly drawn a blueprint for development.
In recent years, with frequent high-level mutual visits, Fujian and Indonesia have continued to deepen exchanges and continue to expand cooperation in various fields with top-level design. Extensive cooperation has been carried out in tourism and other fields, gratifying achievements have been made, and fruitful exchanges and exchanges have been produced.
Optimizing the business environment, economic and trade cooperation heating up
On February 21 this year, the Indonesia-Fuzhou Economic and Trade Matchmaking Conference and project signing event was held in Jakarta. 15 projects were signed at the matchmaking meeting, with a total investment of 21.6 billion yuan, involving food, clean energy, new materials, textiles, etc. field.
In fact, this is not the first large-scale cooperation between Fujian and Indonesia. As early as 2019, Fujian proposed the idea of "two countries, two parks" between China and Indonesia, and explored the dual-park pairing cooperation mechanism of "industrial interconnection, facility interoperability, and policy reciprocity" by means of mutual establishment of industrial parks between China and Indonesia. The implementation of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative and Indonesia's "Global Ocean Fulcrum" concept docking.
The Chinese Garden takes Fuzhou Yuanhong Investment Zone as the core, with a planned area of 60 square kilometers. The Indonesian Park is mainly composed of Indonesian Bintan Industrial Park, Averna Industrial Park and Batang Industrial Park, with a planned area of 87.6 square kilometers.
In January 2023, the State Council approved the establishment of a China-Indonesia Economic and Trade Innovation Development Demonstration Park in Fuzhou. At present, the "Two Countries and Two Parks" of China and Indonesia have been included in the "14th Five-Year" business development plan of the Ministry of Commerce and the "14th Five-Year" foreign trade high-quality development plan, as well as the National Development and Reform Commission's "Belt and Road" Maritime Silk Road Core Area One of the major platforms of the construction plan.
The vigorous development of the "two countries, two parks" project between China and Indonesia further demonstrates that Fujian has always attached great importance to the construction of investment environment and the work of attracting investment. In recent years, Fujian has strengthened the publicity of legal popularization, cooperated with multiple departments to promote the integration of systems, and improved the foreign investment promotion, protection, and management working mechanism.
In-depth implementation of the Foreign Investment Law, the establishment and modification of foreign-invested enterprises not on the negative list will no longer be subject to approval and filing, management will be strictly implemented in accordance with the principle of consistency between domestic and foreign investment, the establishment and improvement of foreign business complaints working mechanism, and the continuous promotion of supporting documents "revision and abolishment" "Work...the implementation of each measure will not only improve the level of government services in Fujian, but also promote the continuous optimization of the foreign investment environment in the province and increase investment attraction.
At present, the actual use of foreign capital in Fujian Province continues to grow. From 2020 to 2022, a total of 7,708 foreign-invested enterprises will be newly established in the province, with new contracted foreign capital of 42.83 billion U.S. dollars and actual use of foreign capital of 14.32 billion U.S. dollars, an average annual growth rate of 5.3%. A group of foreign-funded enterprises have become Fujian's leading industries, advanced manufacturing industries, and key backbone enterprises in emerging industries, effectively driving the province's industries to accelerate transformation, upgrading, and cluster development. (Downloaded to the second edition) (Uploaded to the first edition)
Indonesia is Fujian's largest trading partner in ASEAN. In 2022, the import and export trade volume between Fujian and Indonesia will be 121.52 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.2%. At the same time, Indonesia is Fujian's fourth largest source of foreign investment in ASEAN. By the end of 2022, Indonesia has invested in 323 projects in Fujian, with a total contracted foreign investment of US$820 million and actual investment of US$560 million. These data are enough to prove that Indonesia is becoming an indispensable partner for Fujian to attract foreign investment.
The docking and landing of the "Two Countries, Two Parks" project between China and Indonesia will further promote the construction of local road networks, berths, education, medical care and other supporting infrastructure on both sides, which will not only help promote the economic and trade cooperation between Fujian and Indonesia to a wider fields, higher levels, and deeper levels, making it a hot spot for global entrepreneurs to invest and start businesses, adding new momentum to regional cooperation.
Cultural Inheritance, Friendship, Tourism Drives Exchanges
While strengthening economic and trade cooperation, Fujian and Indonesia also attach great importance to exchanges and cooperation in the field of humanities. Through exchanges and exchanges in culture, education, tourism, etc., friendly relations have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and a humanistic environment of mutual benefit and common development has been continuously built.
Currently, Fujian and Indonesia have officially established 5 pairs of sister cities: Fujian Province and Central Java Province, Fuzhou City and Semarang City, Xiamen City and Surabaya City, Zhangzhou City and Palembang City, Fuqing City and Malang City.
Promote friendship through cultural tourism. The Tourism Bureau of Central Java and the Department of Culture and Tourism of Fujian Province have exchanged visits many times. In 2020, the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism signed a cultural and tourism cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Tourism of Central Java Province, and the Central Java Tourism Association sent staff to participate online in the "Fujian-ASEAN Friendship Cities Conference Cultural Tourism Exchange and Cooperation Sub-forum" hosted by Fujian ". In 2014, Fuzhou City hosted the first "China Fujian Week". It not only organized a delegation to Semarang, Indonesia and other places to carry out economic, trade, cultural and tourism promotion, but also held the "Fuzhou Night" cultural performance in the central square of Semarang. Xiamen City has also organized a cultural exchange performance troupe to visit Surabaya, Indonesia to participate in the "Cross-Cultural Art Festival" four times, and organized city badminton players to participate in the Surabaya International Badminton Championships three times. These activities have greatly promoted the cultural and tourism exchanges between Fujian Province and Indonesia.
Promote communication through education. The successive provincial leaders and directors of the Provincial Department of Education of Central Java Province have led delegations to visit Fujian many times, and discussed with Fujian Provincial Department of Education, Xiamen University, Fujian Economic School, Fujian Industrial School and other relevant institutions in the fields of teacher-student exchanges and vocational training. Carry out cooperation matters. In 2013, Fujian and Central Java exchanged officials for training in Chinese and Indonesian respectively. Surabaya City has also sent city construction management, medical and health delegations to visit Xiamen many times to investigate and learn relevant experience in Xiamen. The international cooperation departments of the two cities even cooperated to hold a video conference to discuss the "Language House" project plan, and conduct practical discussions on the exchange and cooperation projects proposed by Surabaya City, such as integrated education, online teaching, environmental protection schools, tourism promotion, and product exhibitions.
It is conceivable that in the not-too-distant future, Fujian and Indonesia will turn their vision into reality, with stronger economic growth, closer international cooperation, and a better life for the people. The legend of the story.
