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Economy permeates foreign policy priorities
Economic diplomacy remained the ministry’s number one priority, Retno said as she revealed the direction of Indonesia’s foreign policy for the next five years in her first official press statement after being reappointed last week.
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Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (JP/Seto Wardhana)
I
ndonesia’s diplomatic corps will further sharpen its focus on economic activities, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi announced on Tuesday, as she pledged a revamp of human resources management and asserted her leading role in coordinating efforts amid global challenges that have increasingly taken on an economic bent.
Economic diplomacy remained the ministry’s number one priority, Retno said as she revealed the direction of Indonesia’s foreign policy for the next five years in her first official press statement after being reappointed last week.
The priority programs, announced under Retno’s signature “4+1 formula”, comprise policies that the minister previously laid out during her annual foreign policy address at the beginning of the year, with the only addition being structural reforms.
The other foreign policy priorities are protecting Indonesians abroad, maintaining the nation’s sovereignty and integrity and expanding Indonesia’s role on the regional and global stages.
The new policy directives were set up just as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund slashed Indonesia’s economic growth projection amid intensifying global risks, including from the escalating trade war between the United States and China.
“The Foreign Ministry will continue to strengthen the infrastructure for diplomacy and train diplomats to become reliable and of high quality,” Retno said in her address, while emphasizing that the ministry would undergo bureaucratic reform in order to meet the challenges.
