Jordan-Indonesia friendship reaches 70-year mark

AMMAN — Celebrating 70 years of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Jordan, the Indonesian embassy held a press briefing on Wednesday in honour of what it termed a “platinum period of friendship”.

In 1946, the Arab League recognised Indonesia as an independent state, with the first Indonesian Ambassador to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan beginning service on February 27, 1950. In 1956, the first official Indonesian legation was opened in Jordan. It was closed in 1962 for economic reasons, and reopened in 1985, according to the embassy.

In 1986, Jordan opened its first embassy in Jakarta.

“Our friendship and cooperation does not stop at the government level, but extends to the public as well. We might be geographically separated, but we have a very good relationship, with the two nations being two Muslim-majority countries,” said Indonesian Ambassador to Jordan Andy Rachmianto at the press briefing.

Rachmianto highlighted His Majesty King Abdullah’s 2005 Amman Message, which has brought 200 Muslim scholars, among them a number of Indonesians, “to voice Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance”, a vision that was later reinforced during bilateral visits.

In the coming 30 years, the ambassador said he hopes the two countries can “enhance cooperation and partnership in the sectors of trade, tourism and investment”.

Before the Syrian crisis, the trade volume between the two countries reached $500 million, but dropped to $300 million in 2018 and then to $265 million in 2019.

The ambassador attributed the decline to the political unrest in Syria and the current “global trade wars”.

Jordanian investments in Indonesia totalled $3.2 million in 2018 and $240 million over the past eight to 10 years. The largest Jordanian investment in Indonesia is a joint venture between Jordanian phosphate companies and Indonesian fertiliser companies.

Regarding tourism, more than 46,000 Indonesians visited the Kingdom in 2019, an increase from around 35,000 visitors in 2015. In return, around 6,000 Jordanians visited Indonesia in 2019.

A “promising sector” for cooperation, according to the ambassador, is education, with 200 Indonesian students currently studying in different Jordanian universities, an amount that has tripled in the past three years. Moreover, around 50 memoranda of understanding were signed between Indonesian and Jordanian universities in the last four to five years.

A significant decline has been seen in the number of domestic workers. Before 2011, more than 30,000 Indonesians were working in the Kingdom. The number has now dropped to 1,500 workers.

In 2011, Indonesia imposed a moratorium on sending workers to Jordan and the region as a whole due to payment and mistreatment issues with employers, according to Rachmianto, but the gap in numbers is being filled by workers in mining and tourism.

“We appreciate that Jordan is the host of more than four million Syrian and Palestinian refugees, which is why government and non-government actors have been helping raise funds for the Kingdom,” said the envoy.

He noted that Indonesian civil societies, celebrities, philanthropists and others have raised $5.5 million for the Kingdom, while the government has donated around $2 million, coming to a total of $7.5 million.

“Our diplomatic relations are cemented by the issue of Palestine. We appreciate and support the role of His Majesty King Abdullah, the Guardian of the Holy City of Jerusalem, in trying to find a two-state solution for the issue, with a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines and with East Jerusalem as its capital,” said the ambassador. 

“We look forward to huge opportunities for cooperation as we approach a 100-year relationship,” he concluded.