BINTAN - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and a Singapore delegation arrived in Bintan on Tuesday morning (Jan 25) for the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders' Retreat, hosted by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
The two leaders are set to hold a "four-eye" meeting before the larger delegation meeting, after which there will be a signing ceremony for bilateral agreements on airspace management, extradition and defence cooperation.
They are also expected to speak at a joint press conference and give an update on the two countries' wide-ranging bilateral relationship, which spans financial and economic cooperation, the green economy and energy, and human capital development.
PM Lee and President Widodo are slated to witness the signing of an agreement to realign the boundary between the Jakarta Flight Information Region (FIR) and the Singapore FIR; a treaty for the extradition of fugitives; and a joint statement between the two countries' defence ministers on the 2007 Defence Cooperation Agreement and the Military Training Area Implementing Arrangement.
The two leaders will also witness the exchange of letters to bring the above agreements into force simultaneously, said the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.
PM Lee and Mr Widodo will also endorse the announcement of several memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed ahead of the annual retreat, which was not held in the last two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among them are MOUs to expand cooperation in the area of central banking, financial regulation and innovation, and a partnership between the two ministries of education to deepen teacher training and mutual learning through more internships and overseas exchanges.
PM Lee is accompanied by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean; Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen; Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam; Transport Minister S. Iswaran; Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, who is also Second Minister for Trade and Industry; and Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and National Development Sim Ann.
Ms Sim is standing in for Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who received a health risk warning that a close contact has contracted Covid-19.
