Labuan Bajo is the gateway to exotic destinations in East Nusa Tenggara, including the Komodo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Photo credit: iStock/Subodh Agnihotri.
The 15th BIMP-EAGA Summit will be held today in the town of Labuan Bajo in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, which was also the venue of the 42nd ASEAN Summit.
To be chaired by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the BIMP-EAGA Summit will discuss developments in the subregion and its progress toward the BIMP-EAGA Vision (BEV) 2025 goals. It will provide guidance on how to strengthen subregional cooperation further and enhance collaboration toward building the ASEAN Economic Community.
BIMP-EAGA, an initiative of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, is a building block of ASEAN integration. Indonesia's ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023 has adopted the theme, “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth.”
Expanding pipeline of priority projects
The last BIMP-EAGA Summit was held under the chairmanship of Indonesia on 28 October 2021. It was a virtual meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the crisis, leaders at the summit noted that the implementation of priority projects remained on track, and they expanded the rolling pipeline of priority infrastructure projects. As of 28 April 2023, the number of priority projects in the subregion was at 126, an increase of 121% from 57 projects in 2017 when BEV 2025 was adopted. These priority projects amount to $34.45 billion.
BIMP-EAGA has already completed 49 of the projects while six projects finished major phases and 71 are in various stages of implementation.
Economic growth and resilience
Launched in 1994, BIMP-EAGA seeks to spur development in remote and less developed areas in the four countries. Investments in quality infrastructure in economic corridors are intended to create a resilient, inclusive, sustainable, and economically competitive subregion.
At last year’s 25th BIMP-EAGA Ministerial Meeting in Pontianak, capital of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, on 26 November, the Ministers of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines said: “We are encouraged by BIMP-EAGA’s economic performance, despite challenging global and regional circumstances.”
The subregion’s economy started to bounce back from the pandemic in 2021, growing 3% from a 1% contraction in 2020. The combined gross domestic product at current prices was at $358.6 billion in 2021. Total trade in goods increased by $65.8 billion in 2022. Foreign direct investment increased to $6.3 billion and domestic investment jumped to $2 billion.
In Labuan Bajo, the BIMP-EAGA leaders are expected to endorse the Accelerating Cooperation Together (ACT) midterm review of the BEV 2025 report. Building on past achievements and lessons learned in the subregion, the ACT report identifies key measures that would put development initiatives on the fast track and set the foundation for the post-2025 agenda. The midterm review was conducted with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which serves as Regional Development Advisor.