Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Nartalegawa held talks with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Jakarta on August 1, discussing ways to maximise the two countries’ bilateral relations.

In a press conference following the talks, the Indonesian FM said that they agreed to prioritise and improve cooperation in five sectors, namely trade, investment, defence industry, culture and tourism, and mitigation of climate change impacts.

He also called on France to put more investments in renewable energy and infrastructure in Indonesia .

The two sides reached consensus on furthering exchanges to enhance the Indonesian defence industry and push forward for further cooperation in peacekeeping activities, said Marty Nartalegawa.

For his part, the French FM spoke highly of the two countries’ cooperation achievements since their strategic partnership declared in 2011.

In addition to priority areas, the two sides were unanimous in strengthening people-to-people exchanges and improving relations between higher education institutions through joint research programmes.

Both ministers committed to promote cooperation at multilateral forums such as G20 and the United Nations or global issues like climate change.

On this occasion, the two sides signed an agreement on cooperation in administrative reform, technology, training foreign languages and diplomatic staff.

Two-way trade between Indonesia and France in 2012 reached 3 billion USD in 2012, up 5.9 percent from 2008. The figure is set to hit 5 billion USD by 2015.

France is now Indonesia’s fourth largest European investor with 110 companies operating in this Southeast Asian country.-VNA