(Business Lounge Journal – Foreign Insight)
As Romania and Indonesia prepare to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations in 2025, this milestone provides a unique opportunity to reflect on their shared history and explore new pathways for collaboration. Since recognizing Indonesia’s independence in 1950, Romania has consistently nurtured its relationship with Indonesia, fostering cooperation across a range of sectors including politics, trade, culture, and education.
To better understand Romania’s vision for this significant occasion and the future of bilateral relations, we reached out to the Ambassador of Romania to Indonesia, H.E. Dan Adrian Bălănescu, with two written questions. These questions focus on Romania’s key priorities for bilateral cooperation in 2025 and the Ambassador’s hopes for the future of Romania-Indonesia relations in areas such as economy, politics, tourism, and education.
- Key priorities for 2025: What are the key priorities for bilateral cooperation between our two countries in 2025?
Romania and Indonesia will celebrate 75 years of bilateral diplomatic relations in 2025, since Romania recognized the independence of Indonesia on 18 February 1950. In this context, we plan a series of events to mark this anniversary, from political meetings to economic and cultural events. In the cultural field, Romania plans to participate in various Indonesian folklore, dance or writers festivals, puppets shows and others in Indonesia.
As far as our cooperation with ASEAN is concerned, we hope to become members of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.
- Hopes for the future: what are your hopes for the bilateral relations between Romania and Indonesia in the incoming year, particularly in terms of economic, political, industrial, trade or other sectors?
The bilateral cooperation strengthens every year in many fields. As usual, we expect political consultations both between Parliaments and at the Government level, especially in the context of the 75 years celebration. Also, we hope the bilateral commercial exchanges to surpass 200 million USD in 2025, especially due to the Romanian wheat export to Indonesia. As well, there are a number of bilateral agreements in the process of negotiations in different fields.
Other sector where we expect increases is tourism, especially after Romania’s full integration into the Schengen area on 1 January 2025. We expect more Indonesian tourists in Romania, to visit our many tourist attractions such as Bran Castle (also known as Dracula Castle), painted monasteries in Bukovina, medieval towns in Transylvania, mountain resorts or the Delta of the Danube.
In education we will continue to offer a number of scholarships to Indonesian students, and we also expect an increased number of Indonesian youngsters to come to study in Romania. Romanian universities have very good English programs especially in medicine and engineering.
With ambitious goals set for 2025, including deepened ties in politics, trade, and people-to-people connections, Romania and Indonesia are poised to achieve greater heights together. This milestone not only celebrates the rich history of their partnership but also reaffirms the shared commitment to a prosperous and collaborative future.