Thursday, 4 June 2026: His Majesty The Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuanof the State of Brunei Darussalam reshuffled his cabinet, appointing HRH Prince Abdul Mateen Bolkiah as the country’s chief of diplomacy. Prince Abdul Mateen thus became the third foreign minister of Brunei since the country regained its independence from the UK in 1984. Prince Abdul Mateen is deputised by Erywan Yusof, who has been in office as Second Minister of Foreign Affairs since 30 January 2018.
Foreign Minister Bolkiah (born 10 August 1991) has a military background. Prince Abdul Mateen attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom in 2010 and was commissioned into the Royal Brunei Air Force after graduation. He was later transferred to the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, where he currently serves as a Lieutenant Colonel.
In 2011, he was appointed to the Privy Council and became Deputy Chairman of the Department of State Customs, marking an early entry into formal state responsibilities.
Since then, he has regularly represented the Bruneian Royal House at major international and ceremonial events. He attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in 2015 on behalf of his father, later joining the Sultan again at the 2022 summit in Rwanda. He has also appeared at high-profile occasions such as the inauguration of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies’ new building in 2017, the 2019 enthronement of Emperor Naruhito in Japan, the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and the coronation of King Charles III in 2023.
His role has also extended to regional diplomacy. In 2018, he took part in Brunei-Jordan meetings in Amman that produced agreements on infrastructure, tourism, defence, and customs cooperation. He later accompanied the Sultan to the 2019 ASEM summit in Brussels and the ASEAN summit in Thailand, before appearing at further royal and state events in Jordan, Malaysia, and the Philippines in the years that followed. For instance, in May 2026, Abdul Mateen Bolkiah again joined His Majesty The Sultan, representing Brunei in the 48th ASEAN Summit held in Cebu City, Philippines.
Prince Abdul Mateen is joined in the new cabinet by his half-brother, HRH Prince Abdul Malik, who was appointed for the first time as minister in the Prime Minister’s Office. Crown Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah, meanwhile, has retained his position as senior minister at the Prime Minister’s Office.
The shift is providing valuable experience in government to senior yet younger members of the House of Bolkiah, reinforcing perceptions that the next generation of the Bolkiah dynasty is being prepared to take on greater responsibilities as the Sultan, who serves as Head of State and Government, and as the Minister of Defence and Minister Finance and Economy, is about to reach the age of 80 years old on 15 July 2026.
Another notable feature of the reshuffle is the creation of three coordinating ministers, a move that has drawn comparisons with Singapore’s governance model. Brunei has close ties with Singapore as the Brunei dollar and the Singapore dollar are pegged at a 1:1 par value under the two nations’ longstanding Currency Interchangeability Agreement.
The move also addresses a practical challenge. Achieving the goals of Wawasan 2035 (the programme for achieving an economy not reliant on oil and gas) requires close cooperation among the ministries responsible for the economy, education, manpower, investment, digitisation, infrastructure, and social development. Although Brunei has long advocated a ‘whole-of-government’ approach, implementation has often been fragmented across agencies. The new coordinating ministers appear to be intended to bridge these gaps and accelerate decision-making. The latter reform is relevant in a time when Brunei’s oil and gas reserves may wane away in less than thirty years.
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