Q & A with Jully P. Tambunan

Commercial attaché for the Indonesian embassy to Madrid

Q- Could you tell me how the presence of this country in the Spanish market is?

A- Yes, thank you very much. I am from the embassy of Indonesia in Madrid, Spain. We are here to promote Indonesian products in the Spanish market because we are from island country that has the variety of products from many different islands. We are producing a lot of food, a variety of products, especially from agricultural product.

By promoting Indonesian products here, people in Spain know what is Indonesia, what is the product, what is the culture. Indonesia produces food and alimentation products for the world, for America, for European countries, for other countries in the world; but in Spain, just a few people import Indonesian alimentation products.

By having a lot of our alimentation products, we have properties here, we have the chocolate and they can try Indonesian products for free. When business people, professional people come here they can contact companies from Indonesia, they can buy not only Indonesia, not only in this place; whenever they want to come here to our stand and they need to buy any alimentation product, they can just do that. They can come to see me, they can contact me through the Indonesian embassy in Madrid and we provide information about Indonesian products.

Regarding to the economic progress of Indonesia, it is a country with increasing economic power. People know all over the world that Spain and other European countries are now in a crisis, while in India, China and Indonesia there is no crisis. Our economic growth is increasing. This year, the economic growth increased 4.5 percent.

By promoting these products in Spain, we hope that people in Spain can make business contacts with Indonesia in the long term; not in the short term, but in the long term. This is why we are here.

Q- Can you tell me what the real situation of the Asian market is as we speak?

A- The Asian market includes India, China and Indonesia. The Asian market becomes a free-trip area. By having a free-trip area in Asian market they can make people from Indonesia move away to China and then products from China can go easily to Indonesia with zero importing fees. This is the situation of the Indonesian market. Indonesia, India, Korea, Japan, Australia and many other countries are now collaborating by zero importing fees.

Q- What are the new markets for Indonesian products?

A- Spain is a very good market for Indonesia, but we haven’t signed good business in Spain because they have many commodity markets by increasing product import from China and increasing import from European countries. So, it’s very difficult for Indonesia to enter the market in Spain because of the commodity competition situation; but I believe that since they know Indonesia product, its quality, price, they can find out Indonesian products in the Spanish market and they can increase the market.

Indonesian products are sold in Southern America, Africa and Europe. So I believe that Spain is penetrated by products from three markets: the European, South America and Africa.

Q- What can you tell me about the relationship between market and price?

A- The market follows the product. If the products don’t supply the market, prices go down. The market hinges on demand, and then it’s when the price increases. In this phenomenon, we consider the feasibility of working in the market. So when people cannot afford to buy the products we supply, the products in the market get on the demand. There is no way to say that there is more supply and less demand, because eventually the can get the in the level of a good buying price.

Q- Do you carry out any publicity campaign?

A- Of course, the campaign at an educational level, so that people can have information. With modern technologies of today, people get more access to information by Internet. On the other hand, the supplier of information now competes with many media information, printing campaigns, magazines, newspapers. Now people can read newspaper news from their mobiles. In these modern times, media information is very easy and very cheap.