South African - The Indonesian Embassy is to join with South African schools, artists and cultural organisations to host a festival celebrating arts and culture later this month.
The events will take place in Pretoria and Johannesburg between, 22 and 24 August and will be free to the public, although seats are limited.
"The program, under the theme "Indonesia‘s Channel: Bridging Asia - Africa Cooperation, includes conducting a series of Cultural Dance and Music Shows in various places, such as in Pretoria, Mamelodi, and Crosby, Johannesburg, as well as conducting workshops on dances and music for students and local artists," the embassy said.
The theme of the program underlines the important role and meaning of culture, in various aspects of relations among people with different social and cultural backgrounds.
This program is also intended to support local community initiatives, boost cultural awareness in the community and to provide an avenue for promoting the cultural programs of the local schools and community organisations.
The final activity of this cultural program is the presentation of a live and colorful Dance and Music Show featuring the Indra Dance Studio from Indonesia and the Pro Arte School‘s student performers.
The event will be held on Friday, 24 August at 19.00 at the Pro Arte High School, in Alphen Park, Pretoria. The embassy said entrance is free but seats are limited to 600 people.
South Africa and Indonesia have long standing political and economic ties.
In April last year, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka held bilateral political and economic discussions with her Indonesian counterpart Vice President Jusuf Kalla in Jakarta.
The visit was aimed at, amongst others, popularising South Africa‘s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) while investigating areas of co-operation and skills transfer between South Africa and Indonesia.
In addition, the visit to Indonesia came a year after the historic Afro-Asia Conference that commemorated the Bandung Conference of 1955.
At the 2005 Afro-Asia Conference, leaders of African and Asian countries committed themselves, through the New Africa-Asia Strategic Plan (NAASP), to consolidating economic relations between both continents that adequately reflected the strong socio-political links between Asia and Africa.
There is increasing investment by South African companies in the vast mineral reserves of Indonesia, that include nickel, copper, silver, gold. Gencor (Ingwe) is active, with Iron and Steel Corporation (Iscor), Anglo-American, and Plessey also showing interest.
Murray and Roberts has an office in Jakarta and is hoping to obtain civil construction contracts in the infrastructure sector.
In addition, Thebe Investment has signed an agreement with Indonesian-owned trading company PT. Prima Comexindo.
One of the biggest South African information technology (IT) companies, M-Web, has a huge investment portfolio of $16 billion in Indonesia. -
Source: www.allafrica.com (15 Agustus 2007)