Maritime education and training: Indonesia banks on expertise from the Weser

16.05.13

Bremen and Indonesia have high hopes of the expansion of their maritime cooperation. This was evident in April 2013 when a Bremen business delegation sounded out opportunities for intensifying Bremen’s connections with the island republic in Asia.

“Indonesia is a country with immense economic potential,” said Martin Günthner, Bremen’s Senator for Economic Affairs and Ports on his return from the country. “However, , it suffers from substantial deficits in the port and logistics sectors. This is a great opportunity for the experts at bremenports, our port management company, to expand their consulting services for decision-makers in the Indonesian port management business. In the course of numerous meetings with politicians and representatives of the maritime sector, we succeeded in strengthening our connections and expect to see further commissions for our education and training services.”

The port management company bremenports and its partner company in South-East Asia have already cooperated closely in the provision of education and training for logistics specialists since 2008. Since then, the experts from Bremerhaven have taught hundreds of trainees from the newly industrialised country in both Indonesia and in Bremerhaven – knowledge transfer which is an important source of income for the public company.

“Our training courses for Indonesian port managers have earned Bremen an excellent reputation in Indonesia,” comments Robert Howe, Managing Director of bremenports. “This gives us a sound basis for developing further business connections.” Günthner also attended meetings with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, the governors of the provinces of South Sulawesi and East Java as well as the head of the Directorate-General of Sea Transportation, at which it became clear that Indonesia is keenly interested in continuing the cooperation in the field of education. This is also the objective of a Memorandum of Understanding on future cooperation in the field of maritime and nautical education between Hasanuddin University and Bremen University. The Memorandum was signed during the course of the trip.

The delegates also agreed that five representatives of Indonesia’s port authority should come to bremenports for a few weeks to complete internships which will enable them to acquire further experience in port management and planning. Informative visits to the ports of Jakarta, Surabaya and Makassar rounded off the agenda during the visit.