Remarks of President of the Republic of Indonesia at the Opening of the Third Belt and Road Forum (BRF), at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, October 18, 2023
Your Excellency President Xi Jinping,
Excellencies all leaders,
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
First of all, I would like to congratulate for the 10th anniversary of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and I hope that we can strengthen the synergy from BRI in infrastructure development. Amidst the more polarized global situation, the BRI cooperation must never be politicized. This requires our joint effort in preserving the main values, so the initiative gets stronger and bring about more benefits.
There are three things that I want to convey. First, the synergy shall give ownership space for the host country to manage the national projects independently, as a sense of ownership is crucial for the sustainability of the project. Indonesia has Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway national project that is carried out in synergy with BRI. It has been recently launched and in operation. In the future, we will also build synergy for the development of the Nusantara Capital (IKN), energy transition, and industrial downstreaming.
Second, the BRI projects have to be built based on mutually beneficial and equal partnership, supported by robust planning, the use of transparent funding system, local workers’ employment, and the use of domestic products.
Third, we must ensure the sustainability of BRI projects in the long term and strengthen the economic foundation of partner countries, instead of putting a lot of burden to their fiscal condition.
To conclude, I would like to extend my gratitude to the government of the PRC and to President Xi for the contributions to the developing countries through BRI. There is a Chinese proverb saying, ‘Yu gong yí shan’, which means perseverance will make miracles happen. Let us strive perseveringly, advancing economic development, and creating people’s prosperity.
I thank you.
(AY/LW)