Indonesia president attends state banquet hosted by the Queen

The president will meet International Development Secretary Justine Greening before ending his visit on Friday with a speech at the Indonesia-UK Business Forum.

BBC Indonesia correspondent Karishma Vaswani says Indonesians are seeing this as a very important visit.

Mr Yudhoyono is expected to receive a medal of honour from the Queen, as a recognition of the closer ties between the two countries.

The UK is the second largest investor in Indonesia and is keen to do more business there. When Mr Cameron visited Indonesia earlier this year, he said it was time to sell more British defence equipment to an important democracy.

But human rights groups say the UK is moving too quickly and that Indonesia has ignored the plight of its religious minorities, our correspondent added.

During the first day of Mr Yudhoyono’s visit, human rights activist Peter Tatchell was arrested for a breach of the peace after he tried to reach the car of the Indonesian president as he left Westminster Abbey.

Mr Tatchell, who was released without charge, claimed he had wanted to peform a citizen’s arrest because the president “stands accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor and West Papua”, but said he was arrested when he unfurled a West Papuan flag.

Although this is the first full state visit by a foreign leader to the UK this year, the Queen did host monarchs from 26 countries for a Diamond Jubilee lunch at Windsor Castle in June.

She also hosted a lunch for Commonwealth leaders at Marlborough House on Pall Mall. She was joined by more than 70 guests including representatives of all 54 Commonwealth countries.