A brief overview of KoCham, one of the promoting factors of thriving Korea-Indonesia business relationship.
Despite rising challenges and the occurrence of many dynamic changes within the Indonesian government, business relations with Korea have always thrived. Korea and Indonesia have many similarities, for example, we have similar language culture. It is said that Koreans can learn to speak Bahasa Indonesia faster than any other nationalities. Most Koreans who live in Indonesia for more than a year can speak good Bahasa Indonesia, while other expats may take longer to understand the language. This is certainly one of the core strengths as communication plays an essential role in business. There are many other resemblances in history that makes the two countries feel closer to each other and easy to bond.
With the goal of assisting the progress of business and trade relationship between Korea and Indonesia, the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry Indonesia (KoCham) came into existence. KoCham represents the entire South Korean business community in Indonesia. Although KoCham have regular members paying annual fee, service provided also extends to unofficial members. Active Korean companies in Indonesia approaches KoCham when they are faced with issues, be it problems with government, regulations and so on. Over the years, KoCham have built a solid community which supports each member.
KoCham is one of the most organised chambers in Indonesia with a comprehensive organisational structure comprising of a president, 35 vice presidents and 20 secretarial boards—each heads a different sector such as legal sector, customs sector, taxation sector and so forth. KoCham arranges regular meetings with members to exchange information and stay on top of what’s going on in the business and trade market. In an interview with NOW! Jakarta, former Head of Korean Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia, C.K. Song, expressed his confidence in Korea-Indonesia business relations. The following is an excerpt from the interview, which took place in 2016.
“I do believe we are progressing. Especially because I see many improvements happening in this current government. Today’s government is giving a one-stop service for us as we can manage all the administration needed in one place; it is very professional and more efficient. Previously, all matters regarding licensing and administration could be very difficult due to long bureaucratic processes but now everything is more transparent and faster.”
For more information, please visit kocham.or.id.
