Ambassadors of ASEAN countries to Italia held a meeting with Mayor of Napoli, Luigi de Magistris. The meeting was implemented as the work visit of ASEAN Committee in Rome (ACR) to Napoli on Thursday (5/4). On the occasion, the Indonesian ambassador to Italy, Esti Andayani said that Indonesia initiated the event to strengthen relations which have been established well and to explore opportunity in a bid to enhance cooperation between ASEAN countries and Italy, especially Napoli. The government of Napoli can utilize the economic growth in the middle class society in ASEAN regions, which are recorded very good to increase tourism cooperation. In addition to holding meeting with Napoli Mayor, Luigi de Magistris in Palazzo San Giacomo, the ambassadors also met with chairman of Napoli Chamber of Commerce, Girolamo Pettrono to discuss about economic and trade cooperation. Mayor of Napoli, Luigi de Magistris said that Southeast Asian region is important for development of tourism or trade cooperation, handcraft and manufacture industry.

Indonesian Embassy in Washington DC held ‘Voyage to Indonesia 2018’. The event invited around 50 Executive Directors of IMF-World Bank. The event is one of Indonesia’s preparedness to be host of IMF- World Bank meeting and in accordance with  the plan of Spring Meeting of IMF-World Bank which is held in Washington DC in April 2018 , the implementation of Annual Meeting IMF-WB in Bali in October 2018. Around 15,000 delegations are expected to attend the annual meeting. In return, this event is also expected to bring about positive impact for Indonesian economy. This was stated by Managing Director of IMF, Christine Lagarde, when attending ‘Voyage to Indonesia’ at Tilden home in Washington DC on Friday (April 6,2018). On the same occasion, President of World Bank, Jim Yong Kim highlighted specially the Indonesian government’s commitment which focuses on human capital development. Christine Lagarde did appreciate the Indonesian government which pays extraordinary attention to infrastructure sector.

The city government of Semarang along with the city government of Jiaxing, China carried out cooperation through sister city program. Mayor of Semarang, Hendrar Prihadi expressed that the sister city is a joint concept of two cities which are different locations and political administrations in a bid to establish cultural relations and social contacts among both cities’ people. The cooperation with Jiaxing is related to tourism, investment, and trade. The signing of the sister city cooperation will be conducted in November. As early effort of the implementation of sister city program, the city government of Jiaxing conducted scholarship program for students of Semarang city. Meanwhile, the city government of Jiaxing has referred and determined state university of Semarang –UNNES to send students, especially students of Mandarin faculty to participate in the scholarships.