“Indonesia welcomes the visit of PM Albanese on May 14-15,” Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Rolliansyah “Roy” Soemirat said.

“The visit will be PM Albanese’s first visit after he was reelected and it shows the strategic closeness of both countries.”

Australia and Indonesia upgraded their relations to a Strategic Comprehensive Partnership in 2018.

In addition to the Strategic Comprehensive Partnership, both countries forged the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2019.

Roy said that the meeting with President Prabowo Subianto would discuss increasing bilateral cooperation especially in the economic sector, including food, energy resilience and trade as well as priority issues between the new governments of both countries.

He added that both countries would also discuss various regional and global issues.

Traditionally, newly elected Australian PMs visit Asia, especially Indonesia, as the first destination of their bilateral visits.  

Albanese first revealed his plan to meet Prabowo on May 7, during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

He said he would visit Indonesia one day after his new government was sworn in on Tuesday.

“That is … a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will be in the fastest growing region of the world in human history,” Albanese said in an interview with the ABC.

Albanese described Prabowo as a “good friend of mine on a personal level as well as our countries being close.”

“We have no more important relationship than Indonesia. We have an important economic relationship with them. They will grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an important defense and security relationship with them as well,” Albanese said.

Australian political and defense circles were shocked during the Australian election campaign in April when a report was circulated that alleged that Russia had requested Indonesia’s permission to base its long-range bombers and fighters at an air force base in Biak, Papua.

Jakarta has since denied the reports with both Defense and Foreign Ministries rejecting the claims.

In addition to Albanese’s visit, Indonesia is also welcoming the visits of Chinese Premier Li Qiang on May 24-25 and French President Emanuelle Macron on May 27-28.

Their visits will be on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur to be held on May 26-27. (nvn)