印尼咖啡业务针对中国市场

Relations between China and Indonesia have strengthened significantly in the past decade. In 2013, ties were upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership. On the side of economic cooperation, the target is to raise bilateral trade volume to $150 billion by 2020.

Starting today, we present a special series, PELUANG, the Indonesian word for opportunity. We'll look at the constantly expanding trade, investment, and people-to-people relations. And we'll start with coffee, one of Indonesia's most famous commodities. A Chinese migrant has established a coffee empire there, and his descendants are bringing the business back to China.

Coffee has been an important beverage in Indonesia for centuries and that's not only for the delight of drinking it, but also for its economic value.

Coffee is one of the oldest and most popular drinks in the world. Many people are in love with it, or even addicted to it, because of its flavor and aroma. But for one family in Surabaya, it means more than just a drink.

Indonesia is located in a geography ideal for a coffee plantation, which makes it produce some of the world's finest coffees. Go Soe Loet, a Chinese migrant who set his foot in Surabaya in the 1920s, started a coffee business by selling in the streets.

"Our workshop was really tight in the early age. I kept accounts in this desk for about 10 years. When customers bought coffee powders, I weighed coffees on these scales, packed and handed them to customers like this," Soedomo Mergonoto, President director of Kapal API Global, said.

Acquiring the legendary coffee plantations and western roaster technology, the second generation of this family has expanded the small workshop to the largest coffee roasting company it is now in South East Asia, with an annual sales of over a billion US dollars. And the family members are determined to bring the business back to China where they are originally from.

"The middle class in China is growing, and their purchasing power is getting stronger than many countries. Drinking coffee is very popular among them. We see it a great opportunity to get in the Chinese market," Mergonoto said.

The Sino-Indonesian economic relations had strengthened significantly in the past decade. The way of doing business between two countries has also changed.

"In the recent past, we used to sell raw commodities to China. Now China is transforming, there is acceleration in China service sector, in China consumer economy, and that's great opportunity for Indonesia to explore new ways to develop relations with China," Indonesian minister of Trade Tom Lembong said.

The company has decided not only to sell coffee on the shelves, but also open coffee shops in China. The mission is passed to the third generation... like Venny Haryanti who has opened the company's first shop in Shanghai 8 months ago. It's not easy though. Few Chinese know about the Indonesia coffee compared with the western coffee, as most of their knowledge come from the western brands, such as Nestle and Starbucks.

"It makes me appreciate what my parents and grandparents do. Like when my grandparents went to Indonesia, he was basically a foreigner, leaning the new language, learning the new culture, but he ended up being successful. So for me, it is kind of like a challenge, an exciting challenge, because we want to bring the pride of China and the pride of Indonesia together here in Shanghai," Balini Coffee cofounder Venny Haryanti said.

Like her grandparents who first landed in Indonesia almost a century ago, Venny is facing great challenges and opportunities ahead. For her, China is here to stay, and she just getting started.