The forum, held in Beijing on Friday and Saturday, will be attended by around 37 heads of states, including from Russia, Egypt, Portugal, Chile and numerous Asian countries, who will participate in three roundtable discussions.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla is already in Beijing since Thursday to head the Indonesian delegation at the meeting. He will be speaking at the final discussion on promoting green and sustainable development to implement the United Nations’ 2030 agenda, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir.

“One of the issues that will be highlighted is the importance of synergy [of projects] under the BRI framework — and various other collaborations — with national development strategy,” Arrmanatha told a press briefing in Jakarta on Thursday.

In addition, Kalla would also talk about environmental protection as an integral part of the BRI, Arrmanatha said.

Indonesia has recently announced that it will propose 28 projects, including seaports and industrial estates, power plants, smelters and tourist estates, worth US$91.1 billion to Chinese investors as part of its participation in the initiative.

“Indonesia has allocated four corridors to the BRI project. These [lie] in North Sumatra, North Kalimantan, North Sulawesi and the famous island of Bali,” Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said at one of the BRI thematic forums in Beijing on Thursday, according to a press release. “The total population of the four provinces is more than 30 million people. Except for Bali, the three provinces have poverty rates of 7 to 9 percent.”

He said BRI projects should contribute to poverty reduction in those three provinces, and “the benchmark of success is when [projects] can reduce the level of poverty by creating local employment opportunities.”

Luhut argued that economic cooperation with foreign countries was unavoidable, saying “there is no region that can survive by closing its borders to trade. Indonesia believes in openness, pragmatism and innovation”.

On Thursday, Luhut’s office and China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) signed a cooperation plan for regional economic improvement — one of its collaborative projects is Kuala Tanjung Port.

“We use the Chinese network to improve Kuala Tanjung’s performance. They are willing to utilize their network to use the services of Kuala Tanjung Port,” Luhut said.

Also on Thursday, Kalla held a bilateral meeting and had lunch with his Chinese counterpart Wang Qishan to talk about increasing cooperation in trade and investment as well as education.

At the meeting, the two discussed increasing cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, and research and science, according to Arrmanatha.

Kalla said Indonesia was still experiencing a substantial trade deficit with China. He reminded his Chinese counterpart about President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s request for access to China’s market for Indonesian agricultural products — an appeal he had made to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

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