Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore commit to keeping Malacca Strait open in wake of Hormuz blockades
JAKARTA: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are committed to keep the Straits of Malacca and Singapore open for international shipping, the neighboring countries have said, as a cooperation forum for navigation of the strategic waterways concluded on Wednesday.
More than 125 countries and organizations joined the Southeast Asian nations at the 17th Cooperation Forum held in Singapore, a multilateral mechanism aimed at furthering efforts for the safety of navigation and environmental protection in the straits.
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow shipping corridor, stretching 900 km in length, between the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the west and Malaysia and Thailand to the east, with Singapore at the southern end.
It is adjacent to the Singapore Strait. Together they form a continuous shipping channel connecting the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, through which more than 100,000 vessels carrying roughly 25 percent of global trade and almost a third of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass annually.
