Jakarta –

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) received an honorary visit from Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly with a small delegation at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta. Canadian Foreign Minister expresses support for the presidency G20 Indonesia.

“During the meeting, the Canadian foreign minister again expressed Canada’s support for the Indonesian presidency,” said Foreign Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, Retno Marsudi, who accompanied Jokowi to the meeting. , as noted in a written statement, Monday (11/4/2022).

Retno said Canada has also expressed its commitment to continue to have open communication with Indonesia to best prepare the G20 to deal with the current difficult situation. Moreover, Retno added that Indonesia has received similar support from all G20 member countries.

“Therefore, we want us to be able to realize these supports, we are working together so that once again the G20 can function optimally in the midst of this difficult situation,” Retno said.

During the meeting, Indonesia and Canada also discussed economic cooperation between the two countries. Canada is one of Indonesia’s most important trading and investment partners for the North American region.

Retno said that the value of trade between Canada and Indonesia in 2021 will increase quite significantly by almost 30% and the value of investments will also increase by almost 4%.

Jokowi also stressed the importance of the two countries to continue to strengthen cooperative relations in the economic field. One of them is to intensify negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the negotiations of which began last March.

“The president said it was necessary to speed up the negotiations,” Retno said.

“In addition, he also discussed cooperation on clean energy, infrastructure and other issues. Canadian investors are interested in continuing to invest in Indonesia,” he said.

State Minister Pratikno and Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung also accompanied Jokowi to the meeting.

(knv/fjp)