This is apropos three letter to the Editor from this writer carried by the newspaper on Wednesday, Thursday and yesterday. Maritime and logistics cooperation represents an under-utilised frontier.
Indonesia’s control over key shipping lanes in the Malacca and Sunda Straits complements Pakistan’s Arabian Sea ports—Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar. Better port-to-port coordination, enhanced shipping routes and integrated logistics corridors could turn the two nations into a bridge connecting ASEAN with the Middle East and Central Asia. Such cooperation could expand bilateral maritime trade by US$1–2 billion and improve security collaboration against piracy and other transnational threats.
Cultural, educational and people-to-people exchanges also hold significant promise. Despite being the world’s first and second largest Muslim-majority nations, Indonesia and Pakistan still know surprisingly little about each other’s societies. Joint academic programmes, Islamic cultural exchanges, student mobility, tourism promotion and co-produced media content could build a deeper social foundation for long-term cooperation. As both nations navigate questions of identity, governance and modernity, intellectual exchanges between their scholars, ulema and policymakers could generate meaningful dialogue.
(Qamar Bashir)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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