TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi and State-Owned Enterprises (SOE), or BUMN, Minister Erick Thohir signed a memorandum of understanding or MoU on the cooperation of economic diplomacy to support the BUMN Go Global program.

“With this MOU, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the SOE Ministry will establish a joint team of BUMN Go Global to support the development and expansion of SOEs in the global market and identify investment opportunities, both inbound and outbound,” said Retno in a live broadcast on Friday, July 17, 2020.

Retno said the two ministries since early March 2020 had been in tight and intensive collaboration. Both were helping each other regardless of hours and days during the pandemic.

The partnership included the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE), medicines, raw materials for medicine, vaccine development, up to pre-clearance medical information (PCMI). Retno said it showed that they could work more than business as usual.

“From this, we realize that we should seize the moment. This synergy must be strengthened and continued, and again, we must cut off barriers, and the bureaucracy must be shortened and even diminished if necessary so that our move will be faster to help Indonesia's economic recovery,” she remarked.

Retno Marsudi went on to say that the ministry was ready to back the BUMN Go Global project, from the health sector to energy and other sectors. “The point is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will fully support the BUMN Go Global program,” she concluded.

Read: Erick Thohir Forecasts Full Economic Recovery in 2022

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