Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit Bogor today, April 29, to attend the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders' Retreat hosted by host President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
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| Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (right) welcomes President Jokowi to the Istana for the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders' Retreat, March 16, 2023. (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 review the "significant progress" made in bilateral cooperation during their terms.
The developments include three agreements under the Expanded Framework that came into force last month. The agreements were first signed at the Leaders’ Retreat in Bitan Island, Indonesia’s Riau Islands province, in 2022, covering airspace management, defense cooperation and extradition.
Singapore and Indonesia have made significant progress in bilateral cooperation in various areas, including defense, trade and investment, and financial cooperation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the two countries have also stepped up cooperation in healthcare.
At the meeting on April 29, the two leaders also reviewed progress made in areas such as defense, digital economy and sustainable development.
The summit retreat between the two Southeast Asian neighbors is traditionally held annually to promote bilateral relations, except in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This will be the seventh and final meeting between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Jokowi amid impending 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 hand over the leadership to Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto in October, after he won a resounding victory in the presidential election on February 14.
Mr. Bey Machmudin, former spokesman for the President of Indonesia, said that President Jokowi has a popular saying, which is "we cannot choose our neighbors the way we choose our friends".
“But he has found a friend in Lee Hsien Loong,” added Mr Bey Machmudin. “Singapore and Indonesia are both good neighbours and good friends.”
“We are really close and have been friends for a long time,” Widodo, whose two sons studied in Singapore, said in a 2023 interview with the Straits Times . “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 US$15.4 billion (S$20.9 billion) by 2023. That same year, bilateral trade reached US$69 billion.
The two countries are also among each other's top tourist destinations. In 2023, Singapore welcomed 2.3 million tourists from Indonesia, while the archipelago nation welcomed 1.4 million tourists from Singapore.
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