Sydney - Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik is scheduled to open Indonesia Festival 2008 in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday, according to Indonesian sources.
The festival would run until August 31 at the Melbourne Exhibition Hall on Nicolson Street, Carlton, the sources at the Indonesian consulate general in Sydney said.
Wacik would attend the event together with Indonesian ambassador to Australia and Vanuatu TM Hamzah Thayeb.
A 250-member delegation from West Java and other provinces in Indonesia are to participate in the festival which is also to be supported by some 150 local artists and hundreds of Indonesian students in Melbourne.
Preceded by a forum on investment in iron ore and steel industries in Indonesia, the festival would among other things promote West Java‘s economic and investment potentials as well as culture and arts.
At the festival‘s site, around 64 stalls have been set up, among other things, to display the main products of West Java, West Nusa Tenggara, Bali, East Kalimantan and West Sumatra, and publicize the activities of the Youth and Sports Affairs Ministry, Culture and Tourism Ministry, Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), Trade Ministry, Industry Ministry, and the Association of Young Indonesian Businessmen (HIPMI Jaya).
Meanwhile, Indonesian consul general in Melbourne Budiarman Bahar said, held every year in the Victoran city, the Festival Indonesia had become a cohesive force for Indonesian-Australian cooperation in building better relationships at the grassroots level.
Earlier, the minister counselor for economic affairs at the Indonesian consulate general in Melbourne, Jahar Gultom, said national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia and the Indonesian Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) in Sydney would take the opportunity of Festival Indonesia 2008 to encourage Australian businessmen to take part in an Indonesian Export Product Exhibition in Jakarta in October this year.
At least 400 Australian companies were currently operating in Indonesia but many investment opportunities outside the mining and infrastructure sectors were still open to Australian companies, he said.
Source: http://www.antaranews.com (August 28, 2008)
