… As Balogun, Chamber’s president, reveals how trade between two countries grew from zero to $4.78bn
The establishment of the Nigeria-Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) 27 years ago is said to have not only transformed the business relationship between both countries but has changed the perception Indonesians had about Nigerians.
According to Ishmael Balogun, arguably the number one trade ambassador between both countries, about 300,000 Nigerians live and do business in Indonesia and some of them gave ugly impressions of Nigeria by their conducts.
Balogun disclosed at the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture (PHCCIMA) on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at an interactive session organised by Chinyere Nwoga, first female president of the PH City Chamber, for both chambers, galvanising the businessmen in Indonesia and creating a viable chamber of commerce and industry between both countries turned things around.
Now, he said, Indonesia has seen another type of Nigeria, a people who do things right, and who play by the rule.
He said the greatest shock is that NICCI has not recorded one single ‘japa’ (defection) during trade visits to Indonesia. This has completely wiped away the impression that every Nigerian is looking for visa to japa. “Most of us live happily in this country, and we have no plan to migrate.”
He said the next target of NICCI is to win the status of visa on arrival for Nigerians into Indonesia. He said it will soon be granted because Nigeria has had a good record.
How trade grew to $4.78Bn:
My purpose here is to make each of you here an authority on Indonesia. That is why I am introducing the Nigerian Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) which was set up in 1997. Indonesia set it its mission in Nigeria in 1965 and Nigeria later set up its own in Djakarta. We have many reputable individuals on the board of NICCI.
I became president in 2019 and that was after one of my visits to Indonesia. I’ve been doing business with Indonesia as a private citizen, since 2012.
On one of those casual visits to Indonesia, what I didn’t know was that the two ambassadors were already holding meetings because they have the mandate to promote bilateral trade and investment between the two countries, but there was a backing because the chamber of commerce, even though was established in 1997, became moribund two years later.
So, when I was approached, it was just the name as Nigerian Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, there was no office, there was no staff, no website, no Instagram page, no LinkedIn page, there was zero recognition.
When I took that role, I took it as an entrepreneur, starting a business from zero and building it one day at a time, and that’s what we did.
So, we started with zero member, as you can imagine and to this very day, we have grown to about 130 corporate members. I can also say that 70% of our members are Nigerians or Nigerian owned businesses, while 30% are Indonesian based businesses.
How Nigeria overtook South Africa:
Now, in 2019, I did a bit of a research. South Africa was Indonesia’s number one trading partner in the Africa. I found that figure a bit worrisome when we say we have 200 million people, very active people when it comes to business. So, I travelled to Jakarta. I realized we have a lot of our citizens living in Jakarta. So, what is amazing is they are doing businesses but doing it informally. That tells you about the weaknesses of informal trade; no documentation, no lawyer, no accountant.
So, we did our research and when I got to Indonesia, we had our citizens there. What is happening is that a lot of containers were moving out, physical transactions, but the banks are not seeing any records so that means no ‘Form M’ is being opened, no paper is being applied for, no certificate of origin, nothing. So, they are just literally taking cash, buying the goods, exporting. So, when you look at the way data is conducted, those transactions are not recorded. And South Africa was leading. So, we of course started our awareness campaign and we gathered them together and started educating them on why they must use the banks. We showed them what they were missing. Within a year, the trade balance in 2019 was exactly $1.9bn, between Nigeria and Indonesia.
As at 2020, that trade balance became $2bn and it was then that we actually led and became Indonesian’s number one trading partner in the African continent.
Since that time, we’ve not rested on our achievements. We’re very proactive, we are very engaging, we don’t believe because we got something done, we will just sit and become comfortable. So, 2021 we went from $2bn in trade went to $2.7bn. You thought that was good enough? In 2022, we went from $2.7bn to $4.7bn.
Rivers angle:
You might be wondering what we are doing. You may want to know what the transactions and areas of interest could be. Indonesia as a country buys crude oil from Nigeria and again we are in Rivers State. As we speak, an oil rich State so needless to say that there are huge opportunities in that area, aggregately on a yearly basis, they do no less than $2bn in crude oil purchases. We in turn, we buy from Indonesia electronics, pharmaceutical products, health related products (what we call, FMCDs), a lot of finished goods and grocery items. So, you might not know but all around you, there are products from Indonesia that you are consuming on a daily basis. The number one that will strike you is Indomie, it’s an Indonesian brand, the promoters of Indomie are Singaporean but they found the Indomie brand in Indonesia. And they were brave enough to take it beyond Indonesia and needless to say that Indomie is doing excellently well in Nigeria. The company has been diversified, they now do power oil, chin-chin, so many other things just from the success of the Indomie brand. There is health product called procold, orange drugs, owned by one Chief Tony. It has been doing business with Indonesia for the last quarter of the century, that’s 25years.
If you remember Delta soap, so they were importing Delta soap, and the federal government of Nigeria in their own wisdom banned the importation but of course you can produce locally. So, Indonesians now realising the volume of transactions they were doing with the Nigerians decided to partner with them and they set up the first factory in Ilupeju in Lagos State.
There are so many other enterprises from Indonesia that are already thriving in Nigeria, and I’ll be glad to share those things with you as we speak today.
Trade promotions between Nigeria and Indonesia:
We have been promoting trade between both countries and now we carry out trade exhibitions and investment promotions. We endeavour to bring in those in government to feel the pulse of the industry.
Not only that, we also had the privilege of having our Minister for State, Industry, Trade and Investment, we had the representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a lot of private sector enterprises. We had the Indonesian ambassador and the Nigerian ambassador and we had a very good outing. In 2023, we took his Excellency, Gov Peter Mbah, to Indonesia and we had a lot of participations.
In 2024, we had a private sector promoter, Sahara Group, involved in oil and gas and renewable energy. So, we’ve been doing well.
For this year, we are doing something new, something bigger, something better. We wrote to the office of the vice president of Nigeria, His Excellency Kashim Shettima, and you know, to our amazement, we got a response. His office mandated Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) to basically coordinate the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and for all of them to participate in the forth coming Nigerian Indonesian Investment and Trade Forum in Jakarta. So, as we speak we have as part of our delegation, the Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bank of Industry, SMEDAN, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Nigerian Export Promotion Commission (NEPC), and organised private sector.
We didn’t stop there, that’s one of the reasons why we are here today. We decided to collaborate with the chambers of commerce and industry, NACCIMA is on board, PHCCIMA is onboard, American Business Council is on board, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry is onboard, Abuja Chamber is on board, Nigerian American Chamber is on board, Nigerian British is on board. We are not just taking Nigerians on a tourism trip, we are already coordinating with the Indonesian counterparts in Jakarta to let them know that this are the delegation coming from Nigeria. So, they have started to gather their own counterpart industry. For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is coming, they have already alerted their own Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria. When we gather at the investment forum that is where business men and women and cooperations are looking to seek partnerships, investment opportunities, foreign direct investment coming into the country, and like l said our job as the chamber of commerce and industry is simply to connect the dot. For instance, we got a new member (real estate) but he had a need about forex to import. We simply connected him to a company that makes it in Nigeria. Problem solved.
I am a practical person. People cry about visa to go to Indonesia. l can tell you for certain, not only do we get you your visas, you don’t even need to get to the embassy. Your passport will not even leave your safe because the visas are done electronically. What happens is that as a chamber of commerce and Industry, we are well known to the embassy in Nigeria and also verified in Djakarta. So, when you are a member of NICCI, we have verified you, all you have to do is send your details, passport photographs, you may not even need a bank statement actually, because the chamber will write a letter of reference on your behalf and your visas are issued electronically, that’s as simple as that.
We are offering our participants this year a one stop shop. You can get your passport, with your visa issued, you can get your ticket, you can get your accommodation secured, all you have to do is show up and for us, the chamber is an NGO so we are always seeking partnership agencies. The rate of visa approval is 100%.
Everyone anytime we go to Jakarta, we return to Nigeria with everyone we took there. As I have been telling the Indonesian government that they cannot use the sin of a few Nigerian citizens to judge the whole nation. I believe that if someone has committed a crime, let him be responsible for it. As Indonesia’s number one trading partner in Africa, we should be on VOA (visa on arrival), I believe our ambassador was working on it before he was called off, we pray that sooner or later, a Nigerian could just take a passport, buy a ticket, land in Jakarta and have your visa stamped right there on arrival. We’ve worked to that point, and we should be accorded that opportunity, so again, l have come here in peace.
Chinyere Nwoga opens the floor:
Opening the floor for interactions, Nwoga of PHCCIMA said the plan is to grow the businesses of the members and the business communities around the PH economic belt.
She added: “We are here today because we’re pursuing this mandate and we’re proud to stand on that mandate, by the way.
“Indonesia is a country that has prospects. It is a country that offers big extensive business opportunities and we’re here today to hear from the man: the entrepreneur, the president (Balogun) to tell us and expose to us to all those hidden secrets. This is because I know that a lot happens in Indonesia and today, we are going to unbundle all of that by the special grace of God. We will key in and businesses will grow.”
She commended Tari Membre of ‘Now Travels and Tours’ who is the Head of Missions, the Mission Desk of Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, who was said to have sponsored the event.
Interaction:
During interactions, some business owners mentioned various challenges. Some talked about need to carry lawyers along and they got instant assurances.
The insurance group mentioned their own challenges and they were told how to get into the early positions.
Others including Ofon Udofia, executive secretary, Institute of Export Operations and Management (IEOM), asked to know if there were plans to close deficits in non-oil export between Nigeria and Indonesia. Others asked about legal services and insurance in the partnerships.
Responding, Balogun said they were talking to a company in Indonesia known as Wilmar, and they are interested in business in Nigeria and in areas of technology, training, etc.
He reminded the audience that trade balance is in favour of Nigeria but it may not be in the non-oil sector. He said there were huge opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) discussions before the international trade fair.
He noted that Indonesia is big in food business including Indofood (Indomie). They also own Indorama, Kalbe Farma, Wings Group, PT Timah, and PT Wika.
He assured that more companies from Indonesia would come into Port Harcourt by the collaboration being kickstarted by the PHCCIMA and NICCI.
One of the players in the palm oil value chain, Ikechukwu Amajuoyi, who runs a farm between Imo and Rivers states, asked to know if the partnership with Indonesia could help in openings for exchange programmes to deepen skills and close tech gaps in the palm oil value chain.
He said: “Closing the gaps will have significant impact in boosting local palm oil production. We in palm oil production and export located between Imo and Rivers State area have issue with standardization of quality for export.
“We get orders to supply large quantities abroad but getting local producers of same quality is an issue. We got order abroad for 10,000 tons and we even tried to source from Malaysia but the client insisted it must come from Nigeria. We are stranded with the order. We want help in area of training for our producers to know how to operate same standard in palm oil production for export. We also need technology. We want how the collaboration with Indonesia can help us in these key areas.”
All the questions were answered and the participants seemed satisfied and now eager to play deep in Chamber affairs to get the full benefits therein.
