Mar 09: Secretary (East), Shri Saurabh Kumar undertook a visit to Jakarta from 7-8 March 2023 to attend the annual ASEAN-India Senior Officials’ Meeting (AISOM) and East Asia Summit Senior Officials’ Meeting (EAS SOM).
The AISOM was held on 7 March 2023 and was co-chaired by Shri Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East) and H.E. Mr Albert Chua, Permanent Secretary of Singapore. Singapore is the Country Coordinator of India for ASEAN. The meeting was attended by Senior Officials from other ASEAN Member States and Timor Leste as observers of ASEAN. The SOM reviewed the ASEAN-India Partnership across 3 pillars-political-security, economic and sociocultural engagements. The SOM Leaders also discussed further strengthening of ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the field of Maritime Cooperation, Health Cooperation, Cyber Security, Fintech, Economic Engagement, and Food and Energy Security. The meeting also exchanged views on regional and international issues of importance.
Secretary (East) attended the EAS SOM meeting on 8 March 2023. The Meeting was chaired by EAS SOM Leader of Indonesia, H.E Sidharto Suryodipuro and saw the participation of Senior Officials from 18 EAS Participating Countries(10 ASEAN Member States and 8 Dialogue Partners of ASEAN including Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, RoK, Russia and the US) and Timor Leste as Observer of ASEAN. The Meeting discussed the strengthening of the Leaders-led EAS platform, implementation of AOIP, and regional and international issues including the developments in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, Myanmar and Ukraine. Secretary(East) in his intervention underlined the key role played by EAS as a leading mechanism for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. He noted the strong convergence between Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative and ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific and expressed support for Indonesia’s initiative of the Indo-Pacific Forum and EAS Workshop on Coastal Economy.
During the visit, Secretary (East) also had bilateral meetings with his counterparts on the sidelines of the SOM meetings. Overall, Secretary (East)’s visit to Indonesia was fruitful and strengthened India’s bilateral and multilateral engagements in the Indo-Pacific.
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