Indonesian president urges consensus to face challenges

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Sunday said that the world still needs to reach consensus on many global issues to face challenges ahead.

At the World Economic Forum on East Asia, Yudhoyono said that the world needs consensus to withstand political, strategic and economic turbulences which are bound to come in the future.

"The world is not short of ideas -- in fact, we have too many of them. What we lack -- and sorely need -- is consensus. A global consensus is still missing in the climate debate. A consensus is still missing in the Doha round. A consensus is still missing in reforming global institutions. A consensus is still missing on how to rebalance the global economy. We will need this consensus, if we are to withstand the political, strategic and economic turbulences which are bound to come our way in the future," he said.

According to Yudhoyono, the consensus is very important as there are so many challenges the world is facing. "We are ushering in a new global era which do not yet have a name, and whose precise features are only coming to form. There are still some tensions, some pushes and pulls, between the old world and the new world," he said.

However, he said, it is a normal situation."Every transition, every transformation takes time and toil," he said.

He also said that the current condition is not the same as in the past. "In our time, globalism should be inclusive rather than exclusive. It should be pragmatic rather than dogmatic. It should unite rather than divide. It should be directed at addressing common global challenges rather than directed at certain group of countries. It should be driven by the imperative of cooperation rather than confrontation, by collaboration rather than conquest," he said.

Source: Xinhua

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