Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit Bogor today, April 29, to attend the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders' Retreat organized by host country President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
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| Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (right) welcomes President Jokowi to the Istana to attend the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders Retreat, March 16, 3. (Source: Business Times) |
A statement from the Singapore Prime Minister's Office said that at the upcoming meeting, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong and Mr. Jokowi will evaluate the "significant progress" achieved in bilateral cooperation during their tenure.
The developments include three agreements under the Extended Framework that came into force last month. These agreements were first signed at the Leaders' Retreat on Bitan island in Indonesia's Riau archipelago province in 2022, related to airspace management, defense cooperation and extradition.
Singapore and Indonesia have achieved many achievements in bilateral cooperation in many fields, including defense, trade and investment as well as financial cooperation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the two countries also strengthened cooperation in the field of health care.
At the meeting on April 29, the two leaders also reviewed progress made in areas such as defense, digital economy and sustainable development.
The high-level meeting between the two Southeast Asian neighbors is traditionally held annually to promote bilateral relations, except for 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This will be the 7th and final meeting between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Jokowi in the context of upcoming leadership changes in both countries.
In Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong will hand over the Prime Minister's position to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on May 15. Mr. Jokowi will transfer leadership to Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto in October, after he won a resounding victory in the presidential election on February 5.
Mr. Bey Machmudin, former spokesman for the President of Indonesia, said that President Jokowi has a saying that many people love, which is "we cannot choose our neighbors the way we choose our friends".
“But he found a friend in Mr. Lee Hsien Loong,” Mr. Bey Machmudin added. “Singapore and Indonesia are both good neighbors and good friends.”
In an interview with the newspaper The Straits Times In 2023, Mr. Widodo, who has two sons who studied in Singapore, shared: “We are really close and have been friends for a long time. We have never had any problems, even small ones… We always talk about positive things for the future.”
According to The Straits Times, the personal friendship between the two men helped cement the strong bilateral relationship between Singapore and Indonesia.
The Lion City has been Indonesia's top foreign investor since 2014, with foreign direct investment reaching 15,4 billion USD (20,9 billion SGD) by 2023. In the same year, trade Bilateral trade reached 69 billion USD.
The two countries are also among each other's top sources of tourist attraction. In 2023, Singapore welcomes 2,3 million tourists from Indonesia, while the island nation welcomes 1,4 million tourists from Singapore.
