Indonesian firms push for stronger trade ties with Hong Kong, eye opening family offices, investing in energy, logistics and transport sectors A delegation representing some of Indonesia’s top companies is pushing to strengthen business ties with Hong Kong, with their prospective plans including opening family offices and investing in sectors such as energy, logistics and transport. The Employers’ Association of Indonesia revealed the scale of interest on Wednesday, following a meeting with city leader John Lee Ka-chiu, where they discussed the creation of more opportunities for Indonesian businesses and family firms who wanted to tap into Hong Kong and mainland Chinese markets. “We see that there is still so much space for improving our trade and investment bilateral ties, and we’ve seen that Indonesia and Hong Kong need to enhance our trade and investment cooperation,” association chairwoman Shinta Widjaja Kamdani told the press after the closed-door meeting. The association plays a prime role in strategic business cooperation between foreign companies and Indonesian enterprises spanning 34 provincial and 269 district boards. Kamdani also serves as CEO of Sintesa Group, a firm with a portfolio covering energy services, property, and industrial and consumer products. “We have discussed a number of opportunities concerning how Hong Kong can be utilised as a hub for family businesses in Indonesia,” she said. “We are exploring what Hong Kong also has to offer in order to facilitate our entry into Hong Kong and also to mainland China.” Alongside Kamdani, the 20-strong delegation included 15 business leaders representing the country’s big industries such as oil and gas, manufacturing and property. The Sintesa Group CEO said the meeting with Lee had laid a foundation for future visits, adding that the delegation would head to Shenzhen on Thursday. She stopped short of specifying the scale of any prospective investments, but said business talks were at the “beginning stage” as many potentially interested Indonesian companies would be first-time investors in the Hong Kong market. Kamdani said businesses from her country were specifically eyeing sectors such as logistics, transport and energy transition, since Hong Kong’s well-developed infrastructure and Indonesia’s advanced manufacturing provided opportunities to mutually benefit from investment. Last July, Hong Kong’s leader visited Jakarta and signed 15 memorandums of understanding that strengthened ties with Asean countries in fields such as green finance, maritime services, meteorology, aerospace and the promotion of sustainable finance. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprises the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Lee and Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the time agreed to a partnership between the Hong Kong stock exchange and the Indonesian bourse covering cross-border listings, joint product development and the promotion of sustainable finance. Kamdani said on Wednesday that many investments were in the pipeline following Lee’s trip, adding that medium- and large-sized Indonesian companies unfamiliar with Hong Kong were eager to explore using the city as a gateway to the mainland. “Our target is really bringing in new players,” she said, adding firms in the country felt encouraged to open family offices in Hong Kong as they saw the city’s value as a financial hub. Gary Ng, a senior economist at corporate and investment bank Natixis Hong Kong, said Singapore had always shared a stronger tie with Indonesia. He added Hong Kong was likely to become an alternative hub for some firms that wanted to export products to the mainland market. But he said it was too early to say whether more direct investment from the country would be injected into the city’s economy, as the Indonesian delegation was only visiting to learn about the Hong Kong market status quo. Ng said there were many such observation tours for the business sector, but that he believed more of these types of meetings were now publicised because the government was keen to show it had been active in promoting the city. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3259286/indonesian-companies-push-stronger-trade-ties-hong-kong-eye-opening-family-offices-and-investing (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post