Tomorrow Wednesday, Jokowi Will Join The Meeting On The First Day Of The ASEAN 42nd Summit

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) (Doc: State Secretariat)

LABUAN BAJO - President Joko Widodo will chair the entire meeting on the first day of the 42nd Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Labuan Bajo, NTT, on Wednesday 10 May.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Jokowi would chair five meetings consisting of the summit in plenary format and four meetings with representatives of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA), ASEAN Youth, ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC), and High-Level Task Force on ASEAN Community Post-2025 Vision (HLTF-ACV).

"Tomorrow's summit will be closed with dinner," said Retno at a press conference quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, May 9.

On the second day (Thursday, 11/5), Jokowi will lead two of the three summit meetings, namely the Indonesian-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Summit.

Another meeting, namely the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Summit, will be led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The 42nd ASEAN Summit will be attended by eight leaders of member countries plus Timor Leste, who for the first time participated in the top meeting of the regional organization.

Thai PM will not attend considering that elections in the country will be held on May 14 so that he will be represented by Deputy PM Don Pramudwinai.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is still not invited to the summit.

ASEAN has excluded Myanmar's junta from high-level meetings of the region's organization because the military is considered to have failed to implement the Five-Point Consensus.

The consensus is a peace plan initiated by ASEAN leaders in April 2021 to help end the conflict in Myanmar.

During his chairmanship in ASEAN this year, Indonesia raised the theme "ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth" which means ASEAN is relevant and important as a center of world growth.

Indonesia intends to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of ASEAN institutions so that it can answer the challenges of the next 20 years.

Indonesia will guard the area towards ASEAN 2045 to make it more adaptive, responsive, and competitive.

Under the chairmanship of Indonesia, various ASEAN meetings are expected to produce a number of documents, including the post-2025 ASEAN Vision, strengthening ASEAN capacity, and full membership of Timor Leste.