D-8 Paves Up the Way for Food Security Initiatives among Member Countries

Jakarta, Indonesia | March 17, 2009 by D-8 Secretariat

D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam (left), in the meeting with Malaysian PM, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (right). The meeting was held as part of annual consultation meetings of Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as to strengthen cooperation within the food security issues of D-8 countries.

The Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, met today in Jakarta as part of annual consultation meetings of Indonesia and Malaysia. The two neighbouring countries held the consultation for the third time in Jakarta on Tuesday to strengthen their bilateral relations.

The annual consultation, held at the Merdeka Palace, was led by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. At 10 on Tuesday morning the consultation was preceded by a ceremony at the veranda of Merdeka Palace to welcome Prime Minister Badawi. After the reception ceremony, President Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Ahmad Badawi immediately led the annual consultation which was expected to last for about 90 minutes. The annual consultation between Indonesia and Malaysia was held to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

After the luncheon, the Prime Minister received courtesy visit by the Secretary-General of the Development Eight (D-8) Dr Dipo Alam.

Alam extended the Organization’s gratitude to the Malaysian Leadership in D-8, as well as her acknowledgement of the importance of food security to D-8 economies and reaffirm their commitment to enhance collaborative efforts to increase food production and ensure food security, which came into being as a joint action plan known as “KL-Statement: Initiatives to Address Food Security by D-8 countries”.

Alam said a working group on public-private sector partnership in food security was expected to be set up to maintain and develop cooperation among members in order to identify joint-investment potentials in fields such as fertilisers, animal feed, seed and fisheries.

Among other important issue that was raised by Alam was the urgency for the D-8 countries to appeal for the 20 countries (G-20) that will be holding a meeting in London in April, to also consider covering the food security issues in their financial stimulus budget in coping with the global financial criris.

In the meeting with Badawi, Alam introduced the idea of establishing a partly Government, partly NGO entity, “Badawi Center” as a D-8 organ to support the KL-Statement of the initiatives to address food security by member countries. Abdullah welcomes the idea warmly, and confirm that the technicality of the issue can be ironed out further by D-8 Secretariat and Foreign Affairs Ministry of Malaysia.

“We wish that US and EU will not use the stimulus to trigger only the financial or infrastructure construction projects, but also the food security projects,” said Alam, while underlining the trend of rising food cost in near future, and the decreasing purchasing power of the people after being hit by the financial crisis.

To Abdullah, Alam also talked about the organization’s proposal of food security to US President, Barack Obama, that will be also discussed with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and Turkish PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “This is because of only these two countries among our member countries that were invited to G20 meeting next month,” he said. Alam reported to Abdullah that the D-8 forum is currently working on joint investment plan in fertilizer project that will be carried collaboratively, that will serve the purpose to supply economic fertilizer for the benefit of the farmers in member countries.

Besides the fertilizer industry, Alam reported that the Organization is also working to boost the trade and investment intra D-8 by the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA). This will increase the bargaining power of D-8 as economic region for developing countries, to balance the power of developed country such as G-8 that are currently under heavy blow of financial crisis.

At the end of the meeting, Alam presented Abdullah with his painting of the PM, with the flags of D-8 member countries in the background.

The Malaysian prime minister in this Indonesian visit was accompanied by his wife Jeanne Abdullah, several ministers among others Foreign Minister Rais Yatim, Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Human Resources Minister S Subramaniam, and a number of businessmen including Petronas President Mohd Hassan Marican. Badawi’s entourage was also made up of the members of Eminent Persons Group (EPG), namely former deputy prime minister Tun Musa Hitam and Tan Sri Abdul Halim Ali.

*Related photos of the meeting can be viewed by visiting our Gallery menu, or simply by clicking here.

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