India - Indonesia Business Forum 2024

New Delhi [India], February 2: On 31st January 2024, at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, the Embassy of Indonesia held the India - Indonesia Business Forum 2024. This event was aimed at promoting economic relations and nurturing growth and success for both countries. The forum focused on attractive and potential sectors for collaborations, which are pharma, consumer goods, transportation infrastructure, tourism, e-mobility and FinTech.

The business forum also served to kickstart the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Indonesia, which will be celebrated throughout the year with many activities, including events for business community, cultural performances, food festivals, etc.

In her opening remarks, Her Excellency Ambassador Ina Krishnamurthy of Indonesia emphasized that although the current trade and economic relations are strong, there is still plenty room to reap the potentials and opportunities. Therefore, continued building understanding between both countries is definitely important.

The Guest of Honour, Honourable Dr Raj Kumar Ranjan Singh, the Minister of State of External Affairs and Education emphasized the success of both giant economies to survive and thrive from the pandemic through among other increase the number of middle class and growing service sector. Both countries need to increase the cooperation in trade particularly focusing on balancing the trade between the two countries. MOS also extended his hope that Indian business will continue to invest in Indonesia including investment in building the new capital of Indonesia (NUSANTARA).

This forum involved several prominent speakers from both countries, Yose Rizal Damuri, the Executive Director of CSIS (one of the largest think-tanks in Indonesia) and Arnab Basu, advisory leader of PWC, providing a general overview from both countries. Damuri shared his view on Indonesia and India economic relation in the context of geopolitical and geoeconomic. He underlined that in the long term, the trends on global and economic environments will be (i) rapid technological progress; (ii) Increasing demand for sustainable development; and (iii) increasing rivalry among major powers. Arnab Basu from Price Waterhouse Coopers highlighted positive macroeconomic growth of India and the trends that drive high consumption in India which include (i) robust economic growth; (ii) demographic dividend; (iii) increasing urbanization; (iv) increased in disposable income; (v) increasing the number of salaried women; and (vi) digital media.

They were followed by six notable speakers from both India and Indonesia, who shared their views and had intense discussions with around 200 participants.

Nia Niscaya (advisor to the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of Indonesia) provided a view on tourism performance and potentials of Indonesia. Last year, the number of Indian travelers to Indonesia reached over 500 thousand, almost 5% out of 10.4 million total foreign travelers to Indonesia. However, Ms. Nia underlines that this number is only a little more than 1% of total outbound travelers from India. There is much to be done to tap the potentials particularly with the direct flights especially by Vistara and Indigo.

Natasha Ardiani (COO and Co-Founder of Durianpay) shared her view about development of FinTech and current cooperation in FinTech business between young people of India and Indonesia. There is optimism in the growth despite the challenges, which are (i) rising cost of funds; (ii) insufficient monetization; (iii) insufficient profitability; (iv) regulatory challenges; and (v) existing merchant discount that puts pressures on margins for paying companies.

Gigih Udi Atmo (Director of Energy Conservation of Indonesia's Energy Ministry) shared his view about Indonesia's energy transition and electric mobility in the transportation sector, including the key points of incentives for accelerating battery-based electric vehicle investment.

Meanwhile from India's side the forum present Hardik Dave (Executive Director of PwC) speak about the growth of pharma sector in India and the success stories of Indian company in Indonesian market, among other Aurobindo Pharma's, as well as the cooperation between Natco and Mitra Jaya of Indonesia and Hetero Labs and Kalbe Farma of Indonesia In the future. Dave also brought about the new regulation of Indonesia allowing foreign doctors in Indonesia which surely will be a very good opportunity for India to export its doctors to Indonesia.

Abishek Jugran (Head-SAARC Region, Dabur) discuss about the transformation of consumption in India due to Affluent India (changing of household income as well as premiumisation and penetration) ,India and Bharat (increasing urbanization and rural towns mirroring small town), Young India (Indians are getting younger and so are the purchase decision), and Tech and Innovation (big number of mobile connection, internet users, social media users, and e-commerce).

Rajesh Arora (CEO Business Development and Commercials, GMR Airport) for transportation infrastructure highlighted about the development of PPP projects in transportation infrastructure in india also its impacts in Indian Aviation.

The Minister of State and the Ambassador also used the event to unveil the logo for the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relation between Indonesia and India. The peacock with the colour of Indian flag, Tiranga symbolizing the people of India and the garuda with the colour of Indonesian Flag dwiwarna symbolizing the people of Indonesia held their wings together, forming the number 75 with a heart symbol in between, symbolizing the closeness of the two people as well as the strong cooperation between the two countries. It was a result of a logo competition which was held at the end of last year together by the Indonesian Embassy in New Delhi and the Indian Embassy in Jakarta.

The holding of the business forum itself was a manifestation of the tagline of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Indonesia, which was "Building bridges between past, present, and future".

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