Bali Sufficient Facilities for IMF-WB Annual Meeting

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - The World Bank believes that Bali has adequate facilities to host the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) Annual Meeting which will take place in Nusa Dua, Badung regency, in October 2018.

"Indonesia is lucky to have a conference building and good infrastructure facilities," said Press Secretary of External and Corporate Relations of the World Bank, David M Theis in the presentation in Jakarta, Friday (9/2/2018).

Theis compares Bali's facilities with the preparation of Lima, Peru as the country hosts the IMF-WB Annual Meeting in 2015.

"In Lima, the construction of the meeting hall has not been fully completed, because construction is a 'delay', it is only ready a week before the event begins," he said.

The issue of facility readiness also occurred when Istanbul, Turkey hosted the IMF-WB in 2009.

Bali, Theis said, has added value because the Nusa Dua area already has experience to organize international activities.

"The government does not need to spend a lot of money, because Indonesia is quite advanced, so in ten months it is just set up the system," he said.

Although there are no constraints in terms of facilities, the government still budgeted Rp810 billion for the provision of information technology systems and other accommodation.

The cost is borne by the government amounting to Rp672 billion through APBN 2018, the rest supported by the budget of Bank Indonesia of Rp137 billion.

Most of the Rp672 billion budget will be used for the procurement of goods and services needed for secretarial tasks, information technology systems and "branding" media.

During this time IMF-WB meetings are held annually in Washington DC, USA. But once every three years, this annual agenda takes place in another country.

Previously, Lima hosted in 2015, Tokyo hosted in 2012, Istanbul hosted in 2009 and Singapore hosted in 2006.

The advantage of Bali to host in 2018 is that Indonesia has gained a good momentum to expose some successes in the economy in recent years.

According to the plan, as many as 13,000 participants from 189 countries will attend the annual meeting which took place on 8-14 October 2018.

Thousands of participants consisted of delegates, staff from various national and international institutions, private institutions, government institutions, academics and other relevant agencies including youth organizations.

A total of 600 meetings are expected to take place at one of the biggest events in Indonesia that are also being held to encourage activities in the tourism sector. (Ant)