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Jokowi departs for Busan to attend summit, inspect weapons orders
President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo departed on Wednesday to Busan, South Korea, to meet ASEAN and South Korean leaders in a special summit held to strengthen the strategic partnership between the host country and members of the regional association
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resident Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo departed on Wednesday to Busan, South Korea, to meet ASEAN and South Korean leaders in a special summit held to strengthen the strategic partnership between the host country and members of the regional association.
President Jokowi and his entourage departed from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta at 7:10 a.m. on the presidential aircraft. He is scheduled to return to Jakarta on Friday.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno, who accompanied the President before his departure, said the President would use his attendance at the summit to mainly discuss economic issues.
'This [summit discusses] economic issues, [including] the investment cooperation between us and [South] Korea,' he told reporters.
President Jokowi, according to Tedjo, might also spend some time inspecting the construction of weapons ordered by the country from South Korean companies.
'Some of our alutsista [primary weaponry defense system] are being constructed there. So, the President might inspect them,' he said without elaborating further.
In 2011, the Defense Ministry and Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME) of South Korea signed a contract to build three submarines, each of them weighing 1,400 tons and measuring 61.3 meters long.
DSME plans to complete the contract by the first half of 2018.
Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto said earlier that several ministers, including State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno and Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar, would accompany the President on his visit to South Korea.
'The state-owned enterprises minister will join the entourage to initiate maritime cooperation. The environment and forestry minister will also join because [we] have a special cooperation in the forestry sector, in which South Korea became an initiator of green economy,' he said on Tuesday.
The 2014 ASEAN-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit ' the second of its kind ' will be held from Thursday until Friday in Busan, a port city located on the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula.
South Korea and ASEAN initiated relations in November 1989 and the partnership was elevated to the summit level in 1997. In 2009, the two sides signed a free trade pact and upgraded a year later their relations to strategic partnership.
Last year, trade between ASEAN and South Korea reached US$134.3 billion, when South Korea spent $3.8 billion on investment in Southeast Asian nations. South Korea, for its part, received construction orders worth $14.3 billion from ASEAN members.
South Korea ' a long-key partner to Indonesia ' has also been committed to creating stronger ties with Indonesia through, among others, investment realization, a sea wall project and e-government. (***)
