JAKARTA. Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli, in a meeting with Italian Ambassador to Indonesia Vittorio Sandalli here on Thursday, offered cooperation to Italian investors for developing several public transportation projects.

"We had a talk on the Indonesia-Italy economic cooperation, in which I discussed about President Jokowi's plan to focus on the development of public transportation in some secondary cities such as the construction of monorail and tram," Rizal noted in a written statement received by Antara.

The offer was made based on the fact that Indonesia's big cities still lacked proper public transportation services. Jakarta, Medan, and Surabaya were considered as big cities with complexities related to their large population and challenging yet costly urban planning.

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Therefore, with regard to secondary cities, Rizal would outline criteria such as their total population. According to the minister, a city, with a population of two million, could be categorized as a secondary city. "I think the task of providing public transportation in Indonesia's secondary cities would be to attract foreign investors," he noted.

Rizal not only discussed transportation projects but also sought technical assistance from Vittorio for olive cultivation in East Nusa Tenggara.

As Italy is one of the world's major olive oil producers, he hoped that the Indonesians would gain knowledge and an understanding of such an industry from the Italians. "We hope the Italians would help us in utilizing the olive trees since they offer several benefits, especially for the local farmers in East Nusa Tenggara. Not just the fruit and oil, we could also use its timber to build houses," Rizal explained.

In response to the request, Ambassador Vittorio expressed his willingness to be part of Indonesia's efforts to develop its public transportation and agriculture. He would soon inform his Italian colleagues about the available economic opportunities.

"We are ready to help Indonesia in olive cultivation. It gets more interesting since the minister had previously mentioned about assisting Italian companies, which planned to invest some money in cultivation as well as helping in the land acquisition process for olive farms and processing factories," Vittorio stated. (Ade Irma Junida)