Vice-President Boediono Awarded Honorary Doctorate During Australian Visit

As part of an official visit to Australia as a guest of the Australian Government from 9-14 March, Indonesia’s Vice-President HE Professor Dr Boediono will today be awarded an honorary doctorate from The University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth.

After receiving the UWA Honorary Degree of Doctor of Economics, Prof Dr Boediono will then deliver an address and be a guest speaker at a forum entitled In the Zone: The geography of global prosperity which aims to engage national and international leaders in a foreign policy and economic dialogue.

The Vice-President graduated from UWA with an economics degree in 1967 as a participant of the Colombo Plan and is one of many thousands of Indonesian scholarship holders who have studied in Australia.

“Australia congratulates Vice-President Boediono on this achievement and believes this award highlights the importance of education in strengthening people-to-people links through intellectual exchange and mutual understanding,” said Australia’s Ambassador to Indonesia, Greg Moriarty.

In Australia the Vice-President will also visit Canberra, where he will meet Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mr Wayne Swan and hold meetings with a number of ministers and key officials before travelling to Sydney, where he will be hosted by the Governor of New South Wales, Professor Marie Bashir.

The Vice-President will be accompanied by members of the Indonesian Cabinet, underlining the importance of the bilateral relationship and the close commitment of the two countries to work together on shared interests.

“Although this will be his first visit to Australia as Vice-President, it reflects a continuation of Prof Dr Boediono’s longstanding links with Australia over many years,” added the Ambassador.

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