TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – President Joko Widodo said the present global conditions were still plagued by injustices and inequalities, which were evident, among others, in the widening gap between rich and underprivileged countries.

The president said global inequalities were also still pestering strings of countries that had yet to be acknowledged by other countries.

Thus, the president said it was necessary for Asian-African countries to develop a new global economic order open to emerging economic forces. Jokowi also called for a reformed structure of global finance to eliminate the domination of particular countries on the citizens of other nations.

Jokowi said Asian-African counties must also be independent from global finance institutions. “The opinion saying that global economic issues can only be solved by the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB is an old-fashioned opinion that should be discarded,” he said when opening the Asia-Africa Conference at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) in Senayan on Wednesday, April 22, 2015.

Jokowi said Indonesia as an emerging economic powerhouse was gearing up and set to play a global role to strive for positive cause, and that the country was ready to cooperate with all parties to achieve this.

“We stand equally to other countries in the world. We can achieve all this with the Bandung spirit,” he said.

ALI HIDAYAT