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On board Air India One, Nov.6 (ANI): Describing the visit to Indonesian capital Jakarta as the core part of his five-day trip abroad this week, Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, who returned home late on Thursday night, said there is an urgent need to get Indonesia to engage more with India on the economic front to ensure balance of trade between the two nations remains on an equal footing.
Interacting with media that accompanied him on his state visit, Ansari said, "The message that I would like to send out about this visit is that we are maritime neighbours and strategic partners, and the requirement of the day is to engage more seriously with each other in as many areas as possible."
"If we cooperate with each other, it will have a huge and positive impact not only between our two countries, but also on the Asian region as a whole. We have agreed to set up a joint working group (JWG) to work on time schedules. The visit overall was very good in terms of atmospherics; the Indonesians responded on multiple frequencies. Indonesia has been and continues to be a friendly country to India," he added.
He further said that there is a lot of history and cultural familiarity between the two countries, but over the years, "we have seen that there has been very slow progress in the implementation of bilateral agreements or memoranda of understanding between the two countries.
"We need to get the Indonesians to engage more purposefully. We have to establish business-to-business contacts. Many companies and firms are ready to engage and need to engage. India has invested 15 billion dollars in Indonesia, but in comparison, the Indonesian investment is very modest, and this needs to improve. I have urged the Indonesian President that when he next comes for a visit to India, he should come with a business team to take the economic relationship between the two countries to the next level." Ansari said.