Indonesia: Jokowi calls for further evaluation of investment policies

• Nov 22, 2018

While the latest economic policy package was just announced earlier this week, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has called on his ministers to further evaluate policies on investment and tax incentives to ensure they were apt to attract investors.

The key for higher economic growth was investment and exports, said the President at Bogor Palace in West Java on Wednesday, adding that, therefore, the government needed to continuously carry out improvements in investment policies to make Indonesia more competitive.

All the efforts were needed as the country posed a dual deficit – a current account deficit and a trade deficit, he added.

 “We have to assure that the incentives will go to the sectors that can strengthen our industry to strengthen our national economy,” the President said when opening the limited Cabinet meeting on investment and taxation.

He said more investment in the manufacturing industry would help Indonesia transform its economy from its dependency on natural resources to more dependency on manufactured products that have more added value for the economy.

“With all those efforts, we would be able to revitalize our industry and to reduce our dependency on imported raw materials and to maximize the utilization of domestic economic resources,” Jokowi said as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Jokowi said the target of the investment policy was not only to create jobs and reduce unemployment, but also to help businesses, particularly micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and cooperatives expand.

“It can be implemented through the transfer of technology and partnerships between large companies and MSMEs.”

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/11/21/jokowi-calls-for-further-evaluation-of-investment-policies.html