Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Erica Jovel Polanco is in Jakarta to inaugurate the reopening of her country's embassy, in a small win for Indonesia's push into the faraway Latin American and Caribbean region.

Guatemala established its mission in Jakarta in 1992 but closed it a year later when it plunged into economic and political crisis.

With the reopening of the embassy, Indonesia and Guatemala kick off a new page in their bilateral ties, with the aim of fostering trade and investment cooperation, as well as people-to-people exchanges.

The new embassy is the 106th foreign mission in Indonesia and the 14th from Latin America and the Caribbean.

With the considerable distance between Indonesia and Guatemala, the opening of the new embassy paves a way for Indonesia to realize its ambition to tap into nontraditional Latin American markets.

“Guatemala is [among our] biggest trade partners in Latin America. However, the value of our trade [with Guatemala] is still small,” Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said on Tuesday after hosting a meeting with her Guatemalan counterpart at her office in Jakarta.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Guatemala is Indonesia’s third-biggest trade partner in Central America, with total trade worth US$50.2 million last year — from which Indonesia booked a $48.5 million surplus.

The two ministers also discussed the expansion of business-to-business partnerships to follow up the Indonesia-Latin America and Caribbean (INA-LAC) business forum last October — which sealed $33 million worth of business deals.

Latin America has reportedly become less of a potential market because of political turmoil in many countries across the region. However, even before upheaval rocked Latin America, the great geographical distance made their markets less attractive to Indonesian businesspeople and made it more difficult to get market intelligence for maximum market penetration, especially in efforts to take market share and create a positive trade balance.

Being two of many palm oil producers in the world, Indonesia and Guatemala are also committed to fighting against “the discrimination against the commodity”, according to Retno.

“I invite Guatemala to join the Council for Palm Oil Producing Countries," she said.

Besides economics, Retno said that the one-hour talks with her counterpart also covered Indonesia’s proposal for Guatemala to grant visa waivers for Indonesian citizens holding diplomatic or civil service passports. “We’re mulling over the possibility of a visa waiver for all Indonesian citizens,” Retno added.

During her visit to Jakarta, Jovel signed a memorandum of understanding on bilateral consultations with Indonesia, which, according to Retno, would facilitate more structured communications between the two countries.

Jovel said the reopening of the embassy and the bilateral meeting marked a new milestone for leveraging diplomatic ties into economic ties. “Thank you for welcoming us [again] in this country and our President [Jimmy Morales] sends his greetings also.”

It was the first time a Guatemalan foreign minister visited Indonesia since the country closed its mission 26 years ago.

"With a lot of vision, we are projecting better economic, political, cultural, tourism and academic relations," Jovel said at the inauguration of the embassy later on Tuesday.

For Guatemala, she added, a country with abundant natural resources and economic potential in Central America, it was essential to expand the country's presence on the international scene. "Furthermore, [the cooperation with Indonesia] also allows us to [to participate in] joint efforts with geopolitical objectives such as preservation of peace, freedom and international security."

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