Indonesia President Widodo makes first state visit to South Korea

​Indonesian President Joko Widodo arrived in South Korea on Sunday (May 15) for a four-day visit, in what is his first state visit to South Korea.

During his visit, Mr Widodo will meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye later on Monday as part of a bilateral summit, where he is expected to discuss several issues, especially economic ties.

He is also expected to sign several memorandums of understanding, covering various sectors like the environment, creative industry, forestry and trade.

During his visit, Mr Widodo will also meet some 20 senior South Korean business leaders for a round-table discussion.

South Korea is Indonesia’s fifth largest investor, with a total investment of about US$1.2 billion, and there are currently more than 2,000 South Korean companies in Indonesia. 

Trade between the two countries reached about US$24 billion dollars in 2014, but fell last year to about US$17 billion dollars, pushed down by the drop in oil and gas prices. Nonetheless, it is still a substantial volume, considering bilateral trade was only US$200 million when the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1973.

Although this is Mr Widodo’s first state visit to South Korea, it is not his first meeting with Ms Park. The two leaders also met in 2014 when he was in the southern port city of Busan to take part in the Korea-ASEAN meeting.