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Jakarta – The Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, was invited to a meeting of personalities from the world economy in Canada. Indeed, Indonesia is starting to enter the radar of the International Economic Forum for the Americas (IEFA).

“The potential and dynamics of the Indonesian economy are extraordinary,” said Gill Ramillard, president and founder of IEFA, during a meeting with Indonesian Ambassador to Canada Teuku Faizasyah in Montreal, Canada, in a statement press quote detikFinance, Friday (24/2/2017).

IEFA is an influential independent institution in Canada that organizes annual meetings of global figures in Montreal (Conférence de Montréal/CoM), Toronto (Toronto Global Forum/TGF) and Florida, USA (World Strategic Forum) , since 1994. Every year, hundreds of government officials.

CEOs of multinational companies, famous economists and entrepreneurs speak at these forums and discuss global issues. Several personalities appeared on the IEFA forums, including US Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and Managing Director of the UNESCO, Irina Bokova.

Ramillard admitted to having sent an invitation to Sri Mulyani to be a speaker at the TGF next October. “We hope that Minister Sri Mulyani can share her experience and wisdom in managing the finances of a country the size of Indonesia amid a global economy full of uncertainty,” he said .

Meanwhile, the CoM was held from June 12 to 14, 2017, with the main theme of energy and infrastructure.

Several speakers confirmed this, including Prince Albert II (Monaco), former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. As in previous years, the CoM is expected to bring together around 3,000 participants. Ambassador Faizasyah welcomed IEFA’s desire to reach out to Indonesia. “It is time for IEFA to start involving Indonesia,” he said.

In the Southeast Asia region, Indonesia is the largest destination country for Canadian investments and exports. Although the volume of trade between the two countries still stands at around US$3 billion per year and Canadian investment in Indonesia has only reached US$600 million, according to Ambassador Faizasyah, the potential development is still wide open.

“Imagine, Canadian FDI abroad has reached 810 billion US dollars. The opportunity to channel them to Indonesia is very great,” he concluded.

With this in mind, the presence of Indonesian global figures at the IEFA forums will certainly broaden the participants’ view of Indonesia. In particular, Ambassador Faizasyah highlighted the similarity of the theme of the CoM with the current direction of the Indonesian government, namely infrastructure and energy development.

This is why the principal advisor to the Quebec Global (QG) 100 ambassador, Alain Dudoit, also encouraged the presence of senior Indonesian officials within the CoM. The QG100 is a group of CEOs from 100 companies in the province of Quebec that operate in 167 countries. A total of 20 QG100 members operate in Indonesia.

“The promotion of investment potential in Indonesia must be further intensified in Canada,” said the former Canadian ambassador to Poland and Spain.

After being the keynote speaker at the Investment Forum organized by the Indonesian Embassy in Ottawa in May 2016, the head of the Investment Coordination Council (at the time) Franky Sibarani had a dialogue with several CEOs members of QG100. After the meeting, several CEOs expressed their commitment to visit and explore investment opportunities in Indonesia.

“QG 100 continues to encourage its members to expand their operations in Indonesia, particularly through direct investments,” said Ambassador Dudoit.
(mkj/dnl)