Japan offered to invest in Indonesia`s agro industry

Tokyo (ANTARA News) - Indonesian Ambassador to Japan Jusuf Anwar said Indonesia continued to make efforts to lure Japanese investors, particularly in the agro-industrial sector, in order to balance its investment in the electronic and automotive industries.

"Japan needs to expand its investment to other sectors such as agro-industry because Japanese technology also excels in this field, both in food and fisheries," the ambassador said in his address to a seminar on "Investment Opportunities for Food and Agro Industry in Indonesia" here on Tuesday.

The seminar which was organized in cooperation between ASEAN and the Japan Center, was attended by at least 250 Japanese businessmen. They generally wanted to obtain the latest information on investment opportunities in Indonesia.

Although Japan is affected by the impact of the global financial crisis, it still needs data and information on business opportunities in other countries.

The ambassador said that although the financial crisis still affected the world, there was a clear sign that the world would soon get out of the crisis thanks to the hard work of all nations to pass the worst phases of the crisis.

He said that the world should not continue mourning about the crisis but it should serve as a generator to build stronger business opportunities. "That is why investment opportunities continue to be created," he said.

In the meantime, Indonesian Trade Attache Achmad Sigit Dwiwahyono said that the biggest opportunities to make investment in the agro industry lied on six sectors, namely in crude palm oil, cocoa, fisheries, sugar, rubber and coffee.

"The six sectors produce Indonesian primary export commodities so that we need to develop a strong industry in the six sub-sectors. Indonesia needs to create added-value in Indonesian main export goods so that it would need investment," he said.

He said that Indonesia was the world`s biggest crude palm oil producer, third biggest cocoa producer and fourth biggest coffee maker. (*)