Japanese minister fails to meet Darwin at his office

Visiting Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Masayuki Naoshima failed to meet Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Darwin Z. Saleh at the latter?s office, causing disappointment among the Japanese delegate.

Naoshima was scheduled to meet Darwin at the ministry at 2.30 p.m. on Monday after paying a courtesy call on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The meeting was scheduled to last 30 minutes. However, after waiting for 30 minutes and Darwin had not showed up, the Japanese minister and his entourage decided to go back to their hotel with a delegate calling the incident as ?embarrassing?.

Darwin arrived after the Japanese delegation left and soon rushed to meet the Japanese minister at the hotel.

Darwin told the Japanese minister that he failed to arrive on time due to a traffic jam ? for which Naoshima joked that Indonesia might need supports to improve its infrastructure, according to Detik.

During the meeting, Naoshima gave an invitation for Darwin to attend the APEC Energy Ministerial Meeting scheduled to be held in Fukui in June this year.

They also agree to intensify policy dialog at the directorate general level. Darwin assigns Director General of Oil and Gas Evita Legowo to represent Indonesia in the dialog. (*)