Jakarta – President Joko Widodo received former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Merdeka Palace on Thursday, April 18, and reached several agreements in renewable energy and digital transformation in Indonesia.
Blair now actively leads the non-profit organisation he founded, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The meeting, which was attended by Minister of Investment Bahlil Lahadalia and Minister of Administrative Reform and Bureaucratic Reform Abdullah Azwar Anas, reached several important agreements, including a plan to build a solar panel facility in the Capital City of the Archipelago (IKN), which will be implemented with the United Arab Emirates.
“We are currently working on the details of this development plan,” said Lahadalia. He emphasized that this cooperation is part of Indonesia’s broader initiative to develop renewable energy and logistics infrastructure.
In addition to energy discussions, attention was also focused on plans to utilize carbon storage in Indonesia, which is expected to become a new source of state revenue. “We discussed how the carbon that we determined earlier is 70 per cent domestic and 30 per cent overseas,” he said.
In the context of digital transformation, Anas said that Indonesia is working hard to accelerate changes in the bureaucratic sector towards the digital era. The main focus is collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute and learning from pioneering countries in digital transformation, such as the UK and Estonia.
“The President gave a special directive to integrate digital services through a national portal. This is expected to facilitate public access to government services,” he said.
Blair believes there is no faster way to achieve bureaucratic efficiency and progress in a country than through digitalisation programs. (Hartatik)
Banner Photo: Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
