Trade links with SE Asia increasingly vital

One of the contractors, China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd, is building the expressway at the Medan airport, and Shanghai Construction Group has won the bid to build the Bandung expressway.

"The extensive investment has not only boosted Indonesia's economic development but also created some 30,000 jobs for locals," Wu said.

Chinese Tourists

Also, Chinese visitors are helping boost Indonesia's tourism industry, the third-largest contributor to the country's GDP, Wu said.

The country has seen a growing influx of Chinese tourists in the past years. Statistics show that 618,000 Chinese visited Indonesia in 2012, a 20.64 percent rise from the previous year.

Excited at the surge, local tourism authorities have vowed to attract 1 million Chinese visitors in 2014 by adopting such measures as facilitating currency exchange, improving hotel reservations and increasing the number of flights between the two countries, Wu said.

In 2008, central banks of the two countries signed a bilateral currency swap agreement that has a value of 100 billion yuan ($16.33 billion).

Wu said the agreement will fuel Indonesian economy by boosting bilateral trade, and also help stabilize the Indonesia Rupiah. "If violent disturbances occur in the financial market, the Indonesian central bank will have more funds to cope with the crisis."