Closing of the 2023 ASEAN Summit, President Jokowi Calls for Countries in the Southeast Asian Region to be Central to the World

West Manggarai — The 2023 ASEAN Summit has reached its climax, the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo continues to invite all parties to increase unity in order to make all ASEAN countries the center of world growth.

Talking about the global dynamics that are currently happening is indeed very unpredictable. Therefore, ASEAN countries through Indonesia’s chairmanship will not only remain silent in facing these global challenges.

President Jokowi stated that currently the world economy is still not fully stable.

For this reason, in accordance with the big theme of the 2023 ASEAN Summit, namely ‘ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth’, hard efforts continue to be made so that it can become a motor for world peace and growth.

“Asean leaders who I respect, currently the global economy has not fully recovered, rivalries are getting sharper, world dynamics are increasingly unpredictable,” said Jokowi.

“The question is whether ASEAN will only be a spectator, whether ASEAN will only be silent, and whether ASEAN is able to become the engine of peace and growth,” he said.

The Head of State of the Republic of Indonesia is very confident that ASEAN is capable of facing all the world’s challenges, so he stressed the importance of unity.

Because, according to him, with unity, the ideals of the 2023 ASEAN Summit will certainly be realized to the fullest.

“I’m sure we all believe ASEAN can, as long as one key is unity, with unity ASEAN will be able to become a central player in bringing peace and growth,” said the Indonesian President.

Furthermore, the Indonesian President on this goal also asked all ASEAN countries to be able to continue to strengthen economic integration and cooperation in an inclusive manner.

“So that in the future ASEAN must further strengthen its economic integration, strengthen inclusive cooperation including the implementation of assets and strengthen the health architecture of food, energy and financial stability,” he said.

“Let’s work hard to make ASEAN matters the epicenter of growth,” Jokowi continued.

Even with the 2023 ASEAN Summit, in fact it will also have a huge impact on improving the welfare of the local community.

This is because it is able to bring in a large number of tourists to come to Labuan Bajo.

One of the online motorcycle taxi (ojol) drivers, Kasianus stated that since the 2023 ASEAN Summit took place, it has even doubled.

“It can be IDR 400,000 a day, before the summit it’s only IDR 200,000,” he said.