Vice President meets with Zanzibar President

Jakarta-wapresri.go.id Vice President Jusuf Kalla held a bilateral meeting with the President of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar Ali Mohamed Shein at the Jakarta Convention Center, Tuesday (Mar. 7) on the sidelines of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Leaders’ Summit, after previously the Vice President.  The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous government within Tanzania.

This is President Shein’s second visit to Indonesia after previously he attended the 50^th commemoration of the Asian-African Conference in April 2015, in Bandung when he served as the Vice President of Tanzania.

At the meeting, Shein hoped bilateral relations between the two countries get stronger, particularly in the fields of investment and trade.

Shein believed, there are many sectors that could be explored to enhance cooperation in the two areas, including agriculture, fisheries, clothing, health, and oil and gas.

He then invited Indonesian investors to invest in Tanzania which is inhabited by around 50 million people.

“Indonesia and Tanzania have things in in common. Indonesia and Tanzania are rich in spices and people of both country eat rice. We also have a very large market,” Shein argued.

The Vice President welcomed Shein’s idea.

According to him, Indonesia has conducted various forms of cooperation in agriculture with Tanzania since 1977. The cooperation is not only in the form of export of agricultural products, but also efforts to increase agricultural capacity of Tanzania, one of which is the founding Farmer’s Agricultural and Rural Training Centre (FARTC ) in Mkindo, Morogoro in 1996.

“Africa is a very important target market in the agricultural sector. Mr. Thomas Lembong [Head of Head of the Investment Coordinating Board/BKPM] has also visited to Tanzania, “said Vice President.

Tanzania is the 4^th largest trading partner of Indonesia in Sub-Saharan Africa with a total bilateral trade in 2016 reached 233.35 million US dollars. Although the trend in 2011-2015 decreased by an average of 12.31% per year, Indonesia had a surplus of 95.5 million US dollars.

On the occasion, the Vice President also promoted tourism in Indonesia and invited the people of Tanzania to come enjoy a variety of attractions in the country.

Also present in the meeting were Cabinet Secretary Pramono Agung, Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, Information Communication Minister Rudiantara, Head of the Investment Coordinating Board Thomas Lembong, Head of Secretariat of the Vice President Mohamad Oemar, Ambassador to Kenya Soehardjono Sastromihardjo, and Director of the Africa of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tumpal Daniel Simanjuntak.