REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Indonesia and Germany have agreed to increase their cooperation to make it more comprehensive and to become strategic partners to benefit each other. Indonesia presented cooperation priorities based on a "5+3" formula. 

“(This visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel) is very important and we have agreed to increase our cooperation and partnership in the future," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) said at a joint press conference at the Merdeka Palace after holding a bilateral meeting with Chancellor Merkel on Tuesday evening.

Indonesia meanwhile, he said, had presented cooperation priorities based on a "5+3" formula as the main sectors for the cooperation. The five sectors include economy, health, education, research, technology and defense while the three others are agriculture, food, and transportation, he said.

"I am glad for the positive response from Madame Merkel. We have found concrete and real cooperation," he said.

Chancellor Merkel at the conference praised Indonesia`s rapid development compared to 17 years ago, when she first came to the country while she was an environment minister. "With the Jakarta declaration we would work together and develop a lot of strategic cooperation programs," she said.

She said the two countries should escort the implementation of the declaration so that any weakness or shortage could be improved to make the quality of cooperation improved. Germany, she said, views Indonesia as a diverse country in terms of social or geographical conditions so that it could be taken as an example with regard to its handling of various problems it is facing under its complex conditions.

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