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resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is slated to attend various meetings with his counterparts from ASEAN member states as the Indonesian leader hosts the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Group (IMF-WB) annual meetings on the resort island of Bali next week.

On the margins of the major financial and monetary policy forum, Jokowi will also play host to the ASEAN leaders’ gathering on Oct. 11, which is to include opportunities for Southeast Asian leaders to meet among themselves and interface with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.

“[While the] IMF-WB event is a ministerial forum this year, Indonesia has also invited leaders of ASEAN member states to the ASEAN Leaders’ Gathering,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir said at a weekly briefing on Thursday.

The summit serves as a forum for the leaders to discuss common challenges and opportunities in implementing the UN-backed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the region. To this end, the meeting will run with the theme of “achieving SDGs and overcoming the development gap through regional and global collaborative actions”.

“The leaders are also expected to synchronize the UN SDGs and ASEAN’s own SDGs [in its Community] Vision 2025,” Arrmanatha said.

According to a report copublished 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.

The leaders are also likely to raise the issue of regional economic and financial measures and ways to speed up development and regional integration.

Southeast Asia is the sixth largest economy in the world and gross domestic product per capita across the 10-member ASEAN region is forecast to rise to more than US$9,000 by 2030, representing one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.

In addition to the leaders’ gathering, President Jokowi is scheduled to meet his neighbors for bilateral talks, including a leaders’ retreat with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on Oct. 11.

This year, Jokowi and Lee plan to discuss ways to improve digital economy cooperation and investment partnership, said the Foreign Ministry’s Southeast Asia director Denny Abdi. “Last year, the leaders’ retreat placed the digital economy in the spotlight. Both countries have strong potential in the field,” Denny said in Jakarta. “Singapore has strong global connectivity and funding, while Indonesia has a lot of talent to push the industry forward.”

The retreat will also be used as an opportunity for Jokowi and Lee to witness the signing of a bilateral investment treaty on investment protection and promotion.

Since 2014, Indonesia has reviewed its bilateral investment treaties with partner countries. The treaty with Singapore, as Indonesia’s largest investor, would be the first of its kind to be signed and serve as a precedent for agreements with other countries.

On Oct. 12, Jokowi is scheduled to meet Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and focus talks on increasing complementary trade. “Indonesia and Vietnam hope to grow together and not always compete with each other,” Denny said.

Last month, Jokowi and Nguyen signed an action plan for the implementation of the Indonesia-Vietnam strategic partnership 2019-2023.