Indonesia Bilateral Linkages

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• Bilateral Linkages
• Trade and Economic
• Development Assistance
• Other Connections
• Interfaith and Inter-cultural Initiatives

Indonesia Bilateral Linkages

New Zealand's trade relationship with Indonesia is steadily growing. Indonesia was New Zealand's seventh largest export market for the year ending June 2008, and the largest NZ export market in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian and New Zealand markets are complementary and largely non-competitive. That said, there are sectors of mutual interest. For example, in forestry and wood products our bilateral trade is worth around NZ$200 million, almost equally divided between imports and exports.

New Zealand is also linked with Indonesia through development assistance, some defence cooperation, people-to-people links and partnership in the Alliance of Civilisations.

The bilateral relationship is unpinned by cooperation in the multilateral arena. New Zealand and Indonesia cooperate on security, political and economic issues through multilateral fora such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, APEC, ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, ASEAN Regional Forum and the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations. Indonesia and New Zealand also participate in regional and multilateral groupings that promote closer linkages between the countries of ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand (AFTA/CER) and Asia and Latin America. Indonesia became a Pacific Islands Forum Dialogue Partner in August 2001 and both countries participate in the annual South West Pacific Dialogue. Since 2005, Indonesia and New Zealand have also been partners in the East Asia Summit.

New Zealand and Indonesia are party to the following bilateral agreements:

• Air Services Agreement (May 1988)
• Double Taxation Agreement, March 1987
• Trade Agreement, February 1979
• Commonwealth-Indonesia War Graves Agreement, April 1964

Visits

To Indonesia

• Former Prime Minister Helen Clark made bilateral visits to Indonesia in May 2002 and July 2007.
• Hon Phil Goff made bilateral visits to Indonesia in April 2000 and March 2002 as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and in August 2007 as Minister of Trade and Defence.
• Then Prime Minister Rt Hon Helen Clark and former Minister of Trade and Defence Mr Goff both visited Jakarta in January 2005 for the ASEAN-led post-tsunami summit.
• Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Rt Hon Winston Peters visited Jakarta in May 2007 to chair the Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC) with his counterpart, Dr Hassan Wirajuda.
• Hon Rick Barker, then Minister for Civil Defence, visited his counterpart, Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto and gave a keynote address at a joint Indonesia-New Zealand hosted Disaster Risk Management Conference in Jakarta 5-6 August 2008.
• Hon Jim Anderton, former Minister of Agriculture, visited his counterpart Minister in Jakarta on 13 August 2008 to discuss engagement on forestry issues and prevention of illegal logging.

To New Zealand

• President Yudhoyono visited New Zealand in April 2005, accompanied by the former Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs (Aburizal Bakrie), the former State Secretary (Yusril Ihza Mahendra), and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (Hassan Wirajuda), Trade (Mari Pangestu) and former Minister of Finance (Jusuf Anwar).
• President Abdurrahman Wahid visited New Zealand in 2001, the first visit to New Zealand by an Indonesian President since 1972.
• Hassan Wirajuda, also Foreign Minister under President Megawati, visited New Zealand in November 2001.
• Finance Minister Dr Jusuf Anwar visited New Zealand separately in February 2005.