P

reviously it was only Jakarta and cities in Bali that hosted international conferences. But now scores of cities across the archipelago have offered and prepared themselves to host a number of ASEAN meetings.

Indonesia, the 2011 ASEAN chair, is set to host more than 300 meetings throughout the year.

The biggest ASEAN meeting in January, a retreat meeting grouping the association’s foreign ministers, will be held on Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara, from Saturday to Monday.

West Nusa Tenggara Governor Zainul Majdi welcomed Friday the visit of permanent representatives from 10 ASEAN countries in his office, while detailing investment, trade and tourism opportunities available in the province to his ASEAN guests.

Beside Lombok, Bukit Tinggi in West Sumatra, Medan, Manado, Bangka Belitung, Palembang, Mataram, Yogyakarta, Surakarta , Surabaya and Bandung will all host one or more ASEAN meetings.

In February, Medan will host an ASEAN-India trade negotiation meeting while Surakarta and Yogyakarta will jointly host a human rights commission meeting later in the month. In March, Manado will welcome participants of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on disaster relief and exercise.

In April, the Bangka-Belitung Islands is trusted to hold the ASEAN Task Working Group on nuclear power plants while in June Bukit Tinggi will host the working group meeting of the ASEAN commission for the promotion and protection of the rights of women and children.

In July, Bandung will greet participants of the coordinating meeting on services while in August, Manado will host ASEAN Economic Minister meeting and in September, Makassar will host an ASEAN defense meeting.

Later on, Semarang and Surabaya will host meetings on economic matters and AIDS, respectively in November.

The Foreign Ministry’s director of information and media Agustinus Sumartono said that provinces and regencies were eager to welcome ASEAN delegation members to show their hospitality to international communities.

“The goals of distributing the events throughout the region are threefold. Hosting international events means a huge promotion to the world about the beauty and the facilities of one respective region while at the same time generating revenue as delegates will spend money during the conference.

The third benefit is that people in the region will be able to feel the presence of ASEAN, and this will serve the purpose of making ASEAN more people-oriented,” Sumartono said.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has said that ASEAN must become a people-centered organization, and urged country members to work harder to make the grouping directly beneficial and more meaningful to its people.

— JP/Andi Haswidi and Abdul Khalik