An erupting Mount Agung wasn’t enough to cause the big IMF-World Bank meeting to be called off and neither is a series of deadly earthquakes in Lombok, the next island over.
Officials have made it very clear that come hell or come high water, the meeting set to take place in Nusa Dua, Bali in October 8-14, 2018 will push forward.
After all, why else would the government be putting so much into finishing up projects that would usually take years (or even decades) like the GWK statue, airport underpass, and a new airport apron so fast?
Chairperson of the annual IMF-World Bank meeting, Susiwijono Moegiarso stressed that there is no intention to change the location out of Bali after a sequence of earthquakes, including a 6.9 that struck Lombok on Sunday evening.
“What is clear is that there are no plans to move the location of the event,” Susiwijono said at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs, as quoted by Okezone.
The meeting’s committing has been in close communication with the Center for Volcanlogy and Geological Disaster Mitigation Agency (PVMBG) and the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), says the chairman, adding that it’s forecasted that earthquakes will move eastwards and not in a westward direction towards Bali.
“According to the predictions, the (earthquakes) are moving east and not to the west,” he said.
Lombok was originally supposed to be a tourist stop promoted to the thousands of delegates visiting Bali for the meeting, but there’s been a change in plans now, he said.
The meeting is expected to be attended by about 15,000 delegates from 189 countries. Maybe avoid flying in or out of the international terminal during this period, just a friendly tip.
