Jakarta. Robert Blake, the newly appointed US ambassador to Indonesia, says he is seeking to focus his efforts on forging a greater economic collaboration between the two nation and expanding cooperation on issues of climate change and human resources development.

“Indonesia is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is playing an important role in international economic institutions like the G20 and it is an increasingly important market for the United States,” Blake told a selected media, including Jakarta Globe, at his official residence in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Monday.

The US envoy, who presented his letters of credential to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last Thursday, arrived in Jakarta on Nov. 21. He replaces former ambassador Scot Marciel.

Blake, 55, a career diplomat who joined the US Foreign Service in 1985, said one of his priorities was to improve two-way trade between the United States and Indonesia, as part of an effort to help create more jobs and propel growth.

“One of my priorities will be to work with our friends in the government, our friends in Kadin [the Indonesian Chambers of Commerce and Industry], Apindo [the Indonesian Employers Association], to do what we can do to improve the investment climate,” said Blake, who previously served as the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.

Kadin and Apindo are the two main business associations in Indonesia.

The United States is Indonesia’s ninth-biggest trading partner for non-oil-and-gas exports as well as imports, according to the Central Statistics Bureau (BPS).

Indonesia posted around $6.2 billion in trade surplus from the non-oil-and-gas trade with the world’s biggest economy last year.

In 2013, Indonesia exported $15.08 billion of such goods to the United States, up 3.37 percent from 2012, and imported about $8.88 billion, down 22.6 percent from a year earlier.

Blake pointed out a joint study by Ernst & Young Indonesia with some local universities in October last year that estimated American investors poured $65 billion into Indonesia from 2004 to 2012, suggesting the United States may be the biggest country of origin for foreign direct investment in Indonesia over that period of time.

More than 95 percent of American FDI in Indonesia was in the extractive industries, especially in oil and gas and mining, as well as manufacturing.

In the next three to five years, US companies plan to invest some $61 billion in Indonesia, according to executives from the US companies surveyed.

Data from Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) has traditionally put the United States in the third place, behind top-ranked Japan and Singapore, for the country of origin of FDI, but the data does not take into account investments in the oil and gas and finance sectors.

US oil giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, and mining behemoths such as Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining have made significant investments in Indonesia as well as contributed to the overall economy.

Freeport’s local subsidiary, Freeport Indonesia, has for years been the country’s biggest single taxpayer.
US consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson are also prominent players in the Indonesian market.

Blake also tackled questions about Indonesia’s controversial policy to impose export duties for copper ore, which affects both Freeport and Newmont.

“It is important to note that Freeport and Newmont are among the most important foreign investors in Indonesia,” said Blake, a graduate of Harvard and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

“Both of them have contributed close to 1 percent of your country’s GDP now.”

Blake said he hoped the outcome of the series of discussions between the two mining companies and the Indonesian government will yield deals that “allow the companies to continue to operate in the same positive manner they have been operating” over the past few decades.

On the issue of climate change, the ambassador said Washington remained committed to providing more than $500 million in aid to support Indonesia’s pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

“Indonesia also has the world’s greatest marine and the world’s second-greatest terrestrial biodiversity. It is very important to protect that,” he said.

He was referring to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s pledge in 2009 to reduce Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020, or 41 percent with foreign aid.

Blake said his third focus would be “to further strengthen people-to-people ties between the United States and Indonesia,” with a particular focus on increasing cooperation in the field of education.

“The US has some of the best universities in the world. We very much want to help Indonesia to increase the number of students who are able to study in the United States,” and help improve Indonesia’s human capital to pave the way for a better technological knowledge and push for more entrepreneurial activity.

Blake also said that securing a visa to the United States was no longer “a pain” for Indonesians, despite popular perception.

“Let me just say a word about visas, since I sometimes hear that Indonesians still think that it is hard to get a visa. I want to say categorically that it’s not true.”

He said 98 percent of Indonesians who applied for student visas, with a duration of two to four years, were approved, along with 92 percent of people in general who applied to visit the United States.

Blake put the average time for getting a US visa in the days, not weeks.

Another touchy point he addressed was the matter of the United States allegedly spying on foreign leaders. The US National Security Agency is alleged to have known about spying by British intelligence on the Indonesian delegation to the G20 talks in London in 2009, and by Australian intelligence on President Susilo Bambang that same year.

“Our president [Barack Obama] gave a very important speech, not too long ago, where he laid out some of the ways he would like to reform the way that our intelligence is collected, the way the national security agency operates,” Blake said.

He said Obama’s reassurances that the United States was not monitoring the communications of the leaders of close friends and allies “should give comfort to our friends in Indonesia and elsewhere.”

“Our efforts are only directed against those who threaten our own national security,” he said.

Blake called Indonesia a “dream posting” for him, and recalled traveling through the country when he was 19 years old, using local buses and trains.

“I am very excited to be back in Indonesia,” he said.

“I have already had a chance to Mount Gede [in West Java], two weeks ago,” he said, adding he wanted to do much more of such outdoor activities to enjoy Indonesia’s “spectacular scenery” and marine and terrestrial biodiversity.

With regard to the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for July 9, he affirmed the United States “has no particular candidate” that it was supporting.

“We are strictly neutral in this, but we do support a free, fair and transparent process and we are confident that Indonesia will be able to provide such a process.”

By Muhamad Al Azhari, The Jakarta Globe, February 4, 2014.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/new-us-envoy-champions-strong-economic-educational-relations/