ASEAN leaders are gathered in Bali for meetings with a heavy focus on the economy. But in spite of the multitude of challenges that it faces, the regional organization has done quite well to weather the global economic storm.

ASEAN’s economic growth remained above the global average, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said after hosting the ASEAN Leaders Gathering in Bali on Thursday.

The United States and China have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods over the past few months, rattling financial markets as investors worry that the escalating trade conflict could knock global trade and investment.

Drawing on the topic of achieving the United Nations-backed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Jokowi touted the progress that Southeast Asia has made when it comes to alleviating poverty — according to ASEAN data, extreme poverty dropped by 68 percent in the past 15 years.

“ASEAN leaders agree on
the importance of reducing disparities and gaps within each member country and among ASEAN countries.

“This is an important step to ensure that no one is left behind,” Jokowi said in a joint press statement with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Speaking to the press after the closed-door meeting, Jokowi said that financing had been one of the biggest challenges in efforts to achieve the SDGs. To this end, Indonesia proposed to the meeting the implementation of blended finances as an innovative funding mechanism.

Jokowi also placed great importance on regional and global cooperation mechanisms for sustainable development, and underlined the need to prioritize the SDGs within the national framework of each ASEAN member state, as well as the use of technological advances to achieve results.

“Synergy between regional and international organizations in achieving the SDGs — including financial institutions — is also very important,” he said. “It is crucial for ASEAN and the UN to continue to synergize ASEAN Community Vision 2025 with the 2030 Development Agenda.”

According to a report co-published last year by ASEAN and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the UN 2030 Agenda and ASEAN Vision 2025 share a number of common principles, namely putting people first, inclusiveness, sustainability, resilience, dynamism and innovation partnership as well as peace, stability and justice.

Lee said ASEAN leaders had reaffirmed their strong commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation during the meeting, citing insightful discussions.

“ASEAN remains steadfast in upholding an open and rule-based multilateral trading system that has underpinned the region’s economic growth over the past decades,” he said during the joint press statement.

Jokowi and Lee co-hosted the leaders’ gathering on the sidelines of the 2018 Annual Meetings of International Monetary Fund-World Bank Group.

It was attended by seven other ASEAN leaders, as well as UN Secretary-General António Guterres, WB president Jim Yong-kim, and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.

Jim warned against an escalation of the US-China trade row, with Reuters quoting him as saying that if all countries maxed out their trade threats, “we would see a clear slowdown in the economy and the impact on developing countries would be great”.

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