Vice President Ma'ruf Amin Joins Kamala Haris Until The Australian PM Present At Shinzo Abe Cemetery

Shinzo Abe. (Wikimedia Commons/)

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin attended the state funeral procession of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Nippon Budokan who was shot dead.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am now preparing to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Abe," Vice President Ma'ruf Amin said at the Imperial Hotel before leaving for the state funeral site in Tokyo, Tuesday, September 27, as reported by Antara.

The state funeral will also be attended by envoys of 218 countries and international organizations, including Vice President of the United States Investigations Kamala Haris, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Singaporean PM Lee Hsien Loong, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Vietnam President Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

"I was sent to attend this because first, Japan was an important partner for Indonesia, especially in the economic field," added Vice President Ma'ruf.

The Vice President assessed that former PM Shinzo Abe was a person who played an important role in improving Indonesia's relations -- Japan so that relations between the two countries became strategic partners.

"And strengthen closer friendly relations between the Indonesian people and the Japanese people. We want to improve even closer relations in various forms of more concrete cooperation," said the Vice President.

A number of things that want to be done to strengthen relations between the two countries, for example, are to remind them of the agreement that was made when President Jokowi arrived in Tokyo in July 2022.

"For example, the signing of the change to the IJEPA protocol (Indonesia Jepang Economic Partemic Agreement), the G20 Summit in November, there are some where Japan will take part and Japan will also support it, as PM Kishida said yesterday," said the Vice President.

Vice President Ma'ruf Amin also met with Prime Minister (PM) Fumio Kishida at the Akasaka Palace, Tokyo on Monday (26/9).

"Then also investment issues, investment expansion, realization of investment expansion and new investments worth 5.2 billion US dollars, we hope that it will be resolved soon," said the Vice President.

Not to forget the completion of strategic infrastructure projects and the settlement of barriers to Indonesian agricultural and fishery export commodities.

"Including what I said yesterday, we also encourage potential cooperation in the sharia economy and the halal industry, especially in leading sectors such as food, cosmetics, fashion and tourism," said the Vice President.

As for the tourism sector, the Vice President said that Indonesia is ready to become Japan's main partner in the halal business.