On her
first trip to Southeast Asia as German chancellor, Angela Merkel and Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono decided to cooperate more closely in areas
such as defense, the economy and the environment.
Merkel and
the Indonesian president signed the Jakarta Declaration during the German
chancellor's first visit to Indonesia since 1995. The agreement aims to take
bilateral ties "to a higher comprehensive level," enabling the two
countries "especially to develop our strategic cooperation together,"
Merkel said at a news conference.
Closer
defense, economic ties
Germany and
Indonesia will also strengthen defense cooperation, although no concrete deals
were included in the declaration. President Yudhoyono expressed an interest,
however, in German Leopard 2 tanks, made by German manufacturer Krauss-Maffei
Wegmann.
"We'll
be very open and transparent about this," Yudhoyono told reporters, adding
that Indonesia's military equipment needed updating and that Germany was one of
the partners Indonesia could turn to for supplies.
The Jakarta
Declaration also aims to strengthen trade ties. Recently, bilateral trade grew
by 7 percent to more than seven billion dollars (5.7 billion euros). German
delegates estimate that figure could go up to $15 million by 2015.
Fiscal
praise
Being in
Indonesia did not keep Merkel away from her most pressing issue - the eurozone
crisis. She told reporters that German growth would slow down this year because
of weaker exports to budget-battling neighboring countries.
She then
praised Indonesia, which managed to slash its debt from 80 percent of GDP to 24
percent in a matter of years, for its fiscal achievements.
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| Merkel visited a church and a mosque |
"I
think that's an example of what can be achieved and what Europe has to achieve,
especially given the fact that Indonesia was able to achieve this over a short
time, in fact in a few years."
Religion
and science
Earlier on
Tuesday, Merkel visited the Protestant Immanuel Church as well as Istiqlal
Mosque, the region's biggest. Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population
worldwide, with 200 million Indonesians following Islam.
Before
returning to Germany on Wednesday, Merkel will visit the site of the country's
tsunami early-warning system, which was built with German assistance.
"I
believe that we can cooperate more closely in science and research, and the
tsunami warning center is but one example of that," she told reporters.
ng/sej (dpa, AFP, Reuters)
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