The highly-anticipated IMF-World Bank meeting will still be held in Bali next year, despite Mount Agung’s recent eruption, officials say.
The day after the Bali volcano experienced a minor eruption, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan confirmed that the meeting won’t be moving.
“We still have not changed the schedule,” Panjaitan said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
After months of close monitoring, in what was a phreatic, or steam blast eruption, Mount Agung shot up a black cloud of smoke 700 meters into the air on Tuesday evening.
Despite the eruption, Agung’s alert level was not upgraded to the maximum level IV “danger” status, but remains on “standby,” level III, where it’s been since Oct. 29.
“I think the situation at Mount Agung is getting better,” explained Panjaitan, who is the chairman of the committee organizing the IMF-World Bank meeting.
“There was only smoke, what were we fussing about,” he added.
The meeting isn’t until later in the year, slated for October 12-14, 2018, but will be preceded by other events such as seminars and other events.
In order to prepare for the influx of high-profile visitors during the meeting, big plans have been made to further ready Bali’s infrastructure. The government has made a big push to complete construction on an underpass to stretch in front of the airport, a luxury cruise terminal, and the giant sculpture at GWK that has been taking painfully long to erect.
