King grants audience to Jokowi

KUALA LUMPUR: Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah has granted audience to Indonesian President Joko Widodo at Istana Negara.

Joko Widodo, or better known as Jokowi, and his wife Iriana Joko Widodo arrived at 3.35pm Thursday (June 8) to attend an evening reception with His Majesty and spent about an hour at Istana Negara.

Also present were the Raja Permaisuri Agong Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah and the Regent of Pahang Tengku Hassanal Ibrahim Alam Shah Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.

Also attending the reception were Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi.

Earlier, Jokowi held a meeting with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim at Seri Perdana in Putrajaya and witnessed the exchange of several agreements signed by representatives of relevant ministries and agencies from both countries and visited areas around the administrative centre.

Jokowi is scheduled to leave for Indonesia this afternoon after a two-day working visit at Anwar's invitation following the Prime Minister's official visit to the republic in January.

The Indonesian President made an official visit to Malaysia in August 2019, after being reappointed for a second term in the republic’s presidential election on April 17 2019.

In 2022, Indonesia was Malaysia's sixth largest trading partner and Asean's second largest with a trade volume of RM130.14bil (US$29.55bil), which was an increase of 36.5% compared with RM95.31bil (US$22.98bil) in the previous year.

The last time the King held a state visit to Indonesia was on Aug 26 to 29 in 2019, which was Sultan Abdullah's maiden visit to the republic upon his installation as the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong on July 30 in the same year. - Bernama