Regarding the IMF – World Bank annual meeting that will be held in Bali in October 2018, the Coordinating Minister of Maritime, and head of committee, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, highlighted several critical issues that need to be handled prior to the event, such as the waste problem in Bali.
“The garbage pile-up in Bali has reached up to 40 meters high, and almost 32 hectares of land are filled with it,” said Luhut in his office at Thamrin, Central Jakarta, as quoted by Kompas. Currently they are finalizing the tender for the waste management project, which he hopes can be completed within two months so they can quickly resolve the issue.
Besides waste management, Luhut also mentioned the fact that many hotels in Bali are raising their room rates prior to the IMF-World Bank meeting. But he said that the Indonesian government will prepare accommodation for participants of the meeting that is expected to be around 12 – 15 thousand people.
“Some hotel owners are taking advantage of the event by increasing the room rates by tenfold—that is not right,” he protested. “But overall everything is going smoothly.”
Next year, Bali will play host to the annual IMF-World Bank meeting, and as a warm-up, the Indonesian government has participated at the Forum Spring Meetings in Washington DC in 2016 where they got the chance to further introduced Bali and Indonesia. The event was attended by Luhut along with the Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani, and Bank Indonesia Governor, Agus Martowardojo.
The annual IMF-World Bank meeting will be attended by 189 countries represented by around 15,000 delegates.
Photo: www.kabardewata.com.
