REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dino Patti Djalal said that Africa is a key region for Indonesia since the Bandung Conference in 1955. According to him, 6 out of 10 countries with the fastest economic growth in the world are located in Africa. The World Bank said that Africa was the region, which had best reform. Current poverty in Africa declined to below 50 percent.

"We need to speed up cooperation with Africa to compete with China and Brazil. There are a lot of potential sectors that can be explored," Djalal said in a seminar 'Africa Rising' on Wednesday.

He believes that retail investment, commodities and energy sector will go up in line with the increase of middle class number. The seminar is participated by a number of speakers from Ambassador of South Africa, Nigeria and Tunisia and Sudan to Indonesia and also Indonesian CEOs who serve in Africa.

With a population of one billion people, abundant natural resources and dynamic of economic growth and middle class with increasing purchasing power, Africa continent is now projected as the backbone of prosperity in the world in next 30-50 years. Africa is enjoying high economic growth of 4.7 percent during 2009-2013 compared to 2.9 percent of world economic growth in same period.

Indonesian products are currently exported to Africa, such as instant noodles, detergent, pipe glue, buscuits and milk.

Indonesia also has the largest instant noodles plant in Nigeria. Total value of trade between Indonesia and Africa in 2013 reached 11.03 billion USD, an increased from 5.13 billion USD in 2009. More than 20 Indonesian companies operate in various sectors in Africa, such as food, plantation, chemical industry, mining, oil and gas.  The investment value has reached 2.67 billion USD.

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