Luhut: IMF-World Bank Meeting not Affected by Mt. Agung Eruption

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs and committee chairman of the annual IMF-World Bank Meeting Luhut Binsar Panjaitan is confident that the meeting will not be affected by the Mount Agung eruption.

“If the eruption is like the current one, it will only affect a radius of 4.5 kilometers. Especially in October, a decade’s worth of observation show that the winds always blow to the Eastern region,” said Luhut at his office on Tuesday, July 3.

Based on the report he received, Mount Agung’s eruption is considered to be a mild eruption such as the one that Mount Sinabung spewed. “It is not like the eruption in 1963, this is just mere coughs, but a louder type of cough,” said Luhut.

The annual IMF-World Bank meeting is scheduled to take place on October 8 - October 14 of 2018 at Nusa Dua, Badung District, Bali. The meeting is expected to be attended by 17,000 delegations from 189 countries. The meeting will be mainly attended by finance/economic ministers, central bank governors, and people that actively deal with economics.

Previously, Mount Agung once again erupted on Monday night at 21:04 central Indonesia time (WITA). The mountain’s two kilometer-high eruption ignited forest fires in some parts of the forest nearby.

CAESAR AKBAR