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Jokowi, Sabri to discuss border reopening
Leaders eye travel corridor cooperation, mutual vaccine recognition
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alaysia’s new prime minister, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, will make a courtesy call on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during a three-day visit to Jakarta, officials have said, as the two neighbors set their sights on pandemic recovery cooperation.
The prime minister arrived on Tuesday afternoon and will stay until Thursday in his first overseas trip since taking his oath of office in August, continuing a tradition between the two culturally connected countries in which a new leader visits the other in his or her first official trip abroad.
Jokowi visited Kuala Lumpur in 2015 on his first overseas bilateral visit. He later received Mahathir Mohamad in 2018 and Muhyiddin Yassin – whom Ismail Sabri replaced – earlier this year.
“[The visit] will provide an opportunity for the leaders to advance collaboration toward effective recovery as two immediate neighbors with the impacts of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic,” Malaysia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Malaysian leader is scheduled for meetings with Jokowi, the Indonesian business community, the chief editors of certain Indonesian media organizations and members of the Malaysian diaspora residing in the country. He is also set to visit a defense industry facility in Bandung, West Java.
Jokowi and Ismail Sabri are expected to discuss economic cooperation and their shared national interests as leaders of the largest and second-largest palm oil producers in the world, as well as progress on maritime border negotiations.
Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and her Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah met on Tuesday in preparation for the leaders’ meeting on Wednesday. They discussed ways to jump-start the economy and reopen borders and compared notes on ASEAN cooperation.
They previously announced that the two countries had started discussions on a travel corridor and a mutual recognition scheme for COVID-19 vaccine certificates and digital tracking platforms.
As neighbors that share land and sea boundaries and whose populations frequently move across the border, officials on both sides have set their sights on a more coordinated approach to the pandemic response. Both nations have developed their own COVID-19 mobile tracking apps that could be used to facilitate mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccination and tests: MySejahtera in Malaysia and PeduliLindungi in Indonesia.
After a surprising recovery from widespread transmission of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, Indonesia is now keen to fast-track its economic recovery, including by facilitating cross-border travel, as part of a wider trend of reopening in the region.
Earlier this week, Malaysia announced it was opening a quarantine-free travel lane with Singapore through the so-called vaccinated travel lane (VTL) between Changi Airport and Kuala Lumpur, which will be opened in late November. Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines are also planning to set up similar schemes with the two countries and among each other.
Read also: Malaysian Prime Minister arrives in Jakarta for three-day visit
While Indonesia has experienced a period of relative calm in COVID-19 transmission in the past few weeks compared to Malaysia and Singapore, it has fully vaccinated barely a third of its population. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Singapore both enjoy high rates of complete vaccination, at 75 percent and 86 percent of their respective populations, according to Our World in Data,.
Indonesia recorded just 244 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, compared to Malaysia’s 4,543 and Singapore’s 2,470 cases that very same day.
In addition to discussing pandemic recovery strategies, the two leaders are expected to discuss affairs related to ASEAN, “as well as the emerging challenges impacting peace, stability as well as growth and prosperity in the region”, Malaysia’s foreign ministry noted.
The two countries are among the most outspoken in Southeast Asia about concerns over the recently announced tripartite AUKUS security partnership involving Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which involves Australia’s procurement of nuclear-powered submarines.
Top diplomats from Australia and the UK are also headed to Jakarta this week for bilateral meetings with Retno.
Beyond the topics where Indonesia and Malaysia are well aligned, observers hope the neighbors will make progress on more contentious issues, such as cross-border labor arrangements.
Migrant Care executive director Wahyu Susilo said Jokowi should first and foremost talk with the Malaysian leader about finalizing the extension of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the placement and protection of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia.
“I think the most urgent issue is to complete the revision of that MoU. It expired in 2016, and now the situation simply remains in a status quo, without clear legal foundations when a violation occurs,” he said on Tuesday.
Malaysia is among the top receiving countries for Indonesian migrant workers, most of whom work in informal sectors, such as farming and domestic work, where labor protections are often lacking.
Jakarta previously proposed a “one channel system” for worker placement under the Manpower Ministry, and technical teams from the two countries have met to discuss measures to ensure more systematic and transparent recruitment of Indonesian domestic workers.
In a meeting in July, in addition to hashing out the one channel system, officials discussed the “one maid, one task” concept, minimum salaries and other matters “pertaining to the welfare and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in the country”, The Star reported.
