Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo talked about how his country is becoming more important on th...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo talked about how his country is becoming more important on the world stage. He also called for Indonesia to be a "bridge of peace" between Russia and Ukraine.
"In 2022, we will be in charge of the G20, which is a group of the 20 largest economies in the world. We will be in charge of the ASEAN group next year "He said this in Indonesia's annual "state of the nation" speech, which was given a day before the country's 77th birthday.
"It shows that we are at the top of world leadership," he said.
As head of the G20 this year, the president, who is known as "Jokowi," has become more involved in international affairs.
Late in June, he went to Kyiv and Moscow to meet with his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin, as part of diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful end to the war and ease the global food crisis. He was the first leader from Asia to do that.
He said that Indonesia "is seen as a diplomatic bridge" between the two countries.
In his televised national address, Jokowi also said that despite the unstable global economy, the country's economic fundamentals are still strong, with inflation at 4.9% and growth at 5.4% in the second quarter of 2022.
As the pandemic gets better, this year's low number of cases has given Jokowi a chance to get back to his priorities, such as growing the Southeast Asia's largest economy and improving its infrastructure.
Earlier this year, the president's top priority, moving the country's capital to the island of Borneo in Indonesia, was made law by the parliament.
Jokowi was elected in 2014 and will finish his second and last term in 2024. He wore a traditional outfit from the Bangka Belitung islands off the coast of Sumatra. His private secretary said the color of the outfit represented a "green future."
