Indonesia to Attend G20 Summit
March 13th, 2009 at 9:41 pm - by Tom Prout
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will attend the G20 summit in London on April 2nd, presidential spokesman Dino patti Djalal confirmed. Though the President faces legislative elections just one week later on April 9th which had until now cast doubts on whether he could attend, the spokesperson told the Jakarta post daily that his attendance is now guaranteed.
Yudhoyono has announced that he will probably not be able to attend every meeting at the summit, but will do his best taking into account the hectic electoral agenda in Indonesia; the President’s Democratic Party will contend for 560 house seats with 37 other political parties.
According to Dino, a phone call took place Friday evening between U.S. President Barack Obama and President Yudhoyono regarding, amongst other things, the G20 summit. The 10-minute correspondence outlined potential topics to be addressed at the conference in London, aimed to draw up affirmative solutions to the world’s current financial crisis.
Dino stated that the talk revolved around a strong partnership of Indonesia and the U.S. to broach global issues, including climate change; in November 2008 President Obama was contacted by the Indonesian President and asked to include a visit to Indonesia in the itinerary of an APEC meeting in Singapore later this year.
President Yudhoyono plans to introduce the idea of the global expenditure fund scheme in London, April 2nd, an idea which was raised at the Washington summit on November 14th and 15th of last year. The idea behind such an initiative is similar to what is being suggested by other G20 nations, wherein the IMF would increase its lending capabilities in order to boost countries out of financial crisis with loans of a sort.
“The global expenditure fund will allow all countries access to the funds to revise each of their real sectors…We will struggle to get the concept adopted as a joint effort of the international community to tackle the crisis,” Indonesian Foreign Minster Hassan Wirajuda said.
