VP Kalla Meets Facebook's Zuckerberg on Sideline of APEC Summit i

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on stage at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in this Sept. 27, 2015 file photo. (Reuters Photo/Stephen Lam)

By : JG | on 5:00 PM November 20, 2016
Category : Business, Economy, Featured

Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla met with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on the sideline of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru on Saturday (19/11).

Antara News agency reported on Sunday that Kalla explained that he did not speak about taxation during his meeting with the leader of the social media giant. The Indonesian government has been pro-actively campaigning for permanent establishment status for giant over-the-top companies such as Facebook and Google, to help boost the nation's tax revenue.

But the vice president said it was not discussed.

"We did not discuss technical things like that; we just want to expand our relationship with them [Facebook], that is something that is inevitable," Kalla told an Antara reporter, who is covering the summit.

Kalla said Zuckerberg mentioned Facebook's drone plan to help Indonesia's internet connectivity.

Tech giants, including Google's Alphabet, have shown interest in helping millions of people in the archipelago gain access to the internet.

Google has offered its Project Loon, which aims to send large balloons high up into the atmosphere to help connect people to the internet. However, the country's largest telecommunication company, Telkom Indonesia, opposes this plan.

Instead of balloons, Facebook plans to send up large drones at high altitude to provide internet access.

There was not much of an update on this plan, but Kalla said if the program was successful and more people were connected in the country, he expects it to help Indonesia's small and medium enterprises to grow their businesses faster.

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