During the state visit of Indonesian President Joko Widodo to Vietnam on January 12 – 13, 2024, Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata, the Chairman of the Indonesia-Vietnam Friendship Association and Managing Director of Ciputra Group, joined him in meetings and business dialogues. Ciputra Group has developed CIPUTRA HANOI International City consisting of residential buildings, schools, parks, a clubhouse, retail areas, a luxury hotel, and high-rise office buildings over 301 hectares aiming to enhance the quality of life for an expected future population of 50,000 residents.

During the visit, President Joko Widodo highlighted the robust economic and trade cooperation with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Indonesia is now Vietnam’s 3rd largest trade partner, and Vietnam is Indonesia’s 4th largest in ASEAN. One of the objectives of the visit is to elevate bilateral trade turnover to 15 billion USD soon and 18 billion USD by 2028. High -Level Dialogue between the two countries addressed business concerns, economic development policies, investment cooperation, and future trends.

Both leaders shared a vision for their countries to achieve high-income status by 2045. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh welcomed Indonesian businesses in Vietnam, encouraging investments in emerging sectors. Vietnam pledges favorable conditions for stable, long-term business, emphasizing an open policy, infrastructure improvement, and protection of businesses’ rights.

President of Republic Indonesia, H.E. Joko Widodo, is scheduled to make a State Visit and attend the World Economic Forum on ASEAN at the invitation of Vietnamese Leaders on September 2018. To prepare the Presidential Visit, Chairman of IVFA, Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata along with Director for Southeast Asia from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic Indonesia, Mr. Denny Abdi and the Ambassador of Vietnam, H.E. Pham Vinh Quang held a business meeting on 27 August 2018 at Raffles Hotel. The participants of the meeting are IVFA members and Indonesian companies which have business operation in Vietnam.

Ambassador of Vietnam, H.E. Pham Vinh Quang stated that the relationship between Vietnam and Indonesia come from a long way. Since established as strategic partneship in June 2013, both Vietnam and Indonesia has sucessfully implemented action plan from year 2014 -2018 in various area from political and diplomatic dialogues, economic cooperation, security and defense cooperation, as well as promotion of tourism, cultural exchanges and people to people context. IVFA have many members of businessman, it took many years for economic development between 2 countries. Therefore the Government is open to suggestion and proposal from businessman for for next 5 years action plan.

In the meeting, Mr Denny Abdi emphasized that the role of government is as a medium or facilitator by making MOU, G2G, and improving the regulation while the main actors are businessman. At the political level the relationship among the government in Southeast Asia is very good. Every time they have an issue, the Ambassadors and government will discuss how to resolve it. The challenge is to convert the good relationship in political conditions into a mutually beneficial economic relationship between countries.

Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV), is visiting Indonesia on 22 to 24 August 2017 to further implement strategic partnership formed four years ago. During that visitation, Mr. Phu Trong also attended the Welcoming Business Dinner in 23 August on Raffles Hotel hosted by IVFA and KADIN with Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata and Mr. Rosan Perkasa Roeslani as the head of the organization respectively.

Mr. Phu Trong stated that he will look forward to further deepening the traditional friendship and strategic partnership between our country with a view to strengthen the political trust, consolidate the friendship, foster substantive cooperation between Viet Nam and Indonesia, and establish new progress in the bilateral relations.

On 23 August 2017, Mr. Nguyen Dang Tien as the Chairman of VIFA and Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata as the Chairman of IVFA signed a MOU with an aim to consolidate mutual understanding and exchange between the people of Vietnam and Indonesia, promoting bilateral cooperation in the fields of politics, economy, culture, tourism, science-technology. The signing was witnessed by the Government member of Indonesia and Viet Nam.

Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata (left) and Mr. Nguyen Dang Tien (right) signing MOU between VIFA and IVFA

Earlier on that day there were also several other MOU signed from the Indonesia and Viet Nam companies that operating in airlines (Indonesia’s Garuda Indonesia with Vietnam’s Vietnam Airlines), coal trading and seaport investment (Indonesia’s Intra Asia Indonesia with Vietnam’s Hong Phat Group) and education (Indonesia’s President University with Vietnam’s Dong A University).