TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsJokowi, Albanese herald ‘heartfelt’ start to deepening ties
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo welcomes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Indonesia as the two neighbors seek to further deepen ties.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
President Joko ''Jokowi" Widodo (right) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ride bamboo bicycles at the Bogor Palace in West Java on Monday. (AFP/Laily Rachev)
A
ustralia’s Anthony Albanese received on Monday a warm welcome upon the start of his first official visit to Indonesia as prime minister, marked by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s invitation to cycle through a kilometer-long track using bamboo bicycles in the Bogor Palace compound, West Java.
His visit continued an ongoing tradition between leaders of the two neighbors to have their personal relationship reflect the wider state of their countries' bilateral partnership, which Albanese aspired to fortify as part of his winning election campaign pitch.
“Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is one of the most important. That is why I was determined to make this my first bilateral visit, just two weeks as prime minister,” Albanese said during a press conference in Jakarta after the leaders’ meeting.
Their ties have been defined by some as a love-hate relationship, with stretches of stable cooperation disrupted by testy incidents, most recently when Canberra surprised Jakarta by teaming up with the United States and the United Kingdom in a security alliance that promises them a nuclear-powered arsenal.
This time, however, economic cooperation was a unifying factor.
The Labor government leader highlighted the fact that Indonesia was “on track” to be one of the world’s five largest economies, and that Albanese saw “an enormous opportunity” to expand partnerships.
“Revitalizing our trade and investment relationship is a priority for my government,” the prime minister said during his speech at the Bogor Palace.
