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Outgoing Singapore, Indonesia leaders to hold their final retreat in Bogor on Apr 29

PM Lee and Widodo will endorse additional agreements in areas such as defence, the digital economy and sustainability

Janice Lim

Published Fri, Apr 26, 2024 · 05:00 PM

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Indonesian President Joko Widodo will be meeting each other for the last time as leaders of their respective countries at the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders’ Retreat next Monday (Apr 29).

This will be Lee’s seventh and final retreat with Widodo as the prime minister is set to hand over the premiership to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on May 15.

Widodo, meanwhile, will end his second and final term in office in October this year, as he prepares to hand the reins to Prabowo Subianto after a transition period.

The former Indonesian army general won the popular vote in the Feb 14 election, and was recently declared by the elections commission as the next president of South-east Asia’s largest economy.

Lee, along with a host of other Cabinet ministers, will be heading to Bogor in West Java, where both leaders will take stock of the “significant progress” made on bilateral cooperation during their respective tenures, said the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in a statement on Friday.

This includes a set of agreements dealing with air space management, defence and extradition which came into force in March of this year.

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The PMO added that Singapore and Indonesia have also made advances in bilateral cooperation in other areas, including trade and investment, financial cooperation and healthcare.

At the upcoming retreat, Lee and Widodo will endorse additional agreements in areas such as defence, the digital economy and sustainability.

Wong, who is also finance minister, will be part of the Singapore delegation accompanying Lee to Bogor.

Other ministers making the trip are Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean; Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen; Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan; Education Minister Chan Chun Sing; Social and Family Development Minister Masagos Zulkifli, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung; and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng.