"The recovery from the impacts of COVID-19 and the challenges of the increasingly uncertain global conditions are the background for the reactivation of this cooperation forum among regional governments, especially to strengthen cooperation in concrete programs that can offer direct benefits to regional and community economic recovery," Deputy for Coordination of International Economic Cooperation at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs Edi Prio Pambudi said here on Saturday.
This is also in line with the results of the Mid-Term Review of the BIMP-EAGA Vision 2025 (BEV 2025), which recommend an institutional empowerment through the participation of regional governments, in implementing a more comprehensive BEV 2025.
According to Pambudi, to push the achievement of the target until 2025, there are at least three strategic steps that can be taken.
The first step is identifying and prioritizing projects that are concrete and can directly impact the community, especially collaborations in several strategic sectors such as tourism, agriculture, energy, trade, and investment.
"Next is strengthening the collaboration mechanism for all elements in cooperation. The involvement of all elements in BIMP-EAGA, including the private sector, will become the key to comprehensive and effective implementation," he said.
The other step is strengthening the evaluation mechanism for various projects to ensure that the implementation of initiatives runs according to the targets that have been set.
He added that the participating delegates agreed that the BIMP-EAGA sub-regional cooperation must play its role as a building block for economic integration in the broader region of ASEAN.
"Regions must become the main driving force in sub-regional cooperation, where regional governments act as facilitators, and the business people who will implement points of the agreement will get the real benefits from the implementation of various programs," he remarked.
One of the forms of concrete cooperation in the BIMP-EAGA framework is building an electricity interconnection in the border areas of West Kalimantan and Sarawak, covering nine cities/districts -- Pontianak, Kubu Raya, Mempawah, Singkawang, Bengkayang, Landak, Sanggau, Sekadau, and Sintang.
In the future, a Special Border Economic Zone in the Entikong-Tebbedu border and cooperation in other borders, such as Nanga Badau and Aruk, will be pushed, he added.
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Translator: Rendra Oxtora, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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