Australia telegraphs intention to pour money into Southeast Asia neighbourhood

Australia telegraphs intention to pour money into Southeast Asia neighbourhood

By AMANDA HODGE
SOUTH EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT

12:00AM SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

As good guests invariably do, Anthony Albanese came to Jakarta this week bearing gifts in the form of a plan to deepen Australia’s economic engagement with Southeast Asia.

In a week marked by US and Chinese presidential snubs and intractable regional crises, the blueprint for a new deal with the ASEAN region was a rare piece of good news for a bloc that has drawn savage criticism for its flaccid positions on the South China Sea and Myanmar.

Albanese chose Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations investment forum to launch Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040, which he declared the most “significant upgrade of Australia’s economic engagement with ASEAN for a generation”.

The region is destined to be the “world’s next economic powerhouse”, but Australia’s trade and investment have not kept pace with that growth, the Prime Minister said, before jetting off to Manila and then New Delhi for the G20.

Two-way trade with ASEAN last year was $178bn. Investment was $207bn though direct Australian investment in the region was lower now than it was in 2014.

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