President Joko Widodo Encourages Private Parties to Involve in Development

President Joko Widodo enters limited meeting room, followed by Minister of State Secretary and Cabinet Secretary, at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, on Tuesday (19/7) afternoon

President Joko Widodo firmly said that to move national economic wheel, the Government cannot do it alone. It needs private parties’ involvement particularly in infrastructure development that now becomes the priority of the Government.

“Private parties’ involvement in infrastructure development can alsobe found in other countries and their rate of involvement is around 22 to 40 percent,” the President said in his introductory remarks at a limited meeting discussing “Companies Ready to Invest”, at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, on Tuesday (19/7) afternoon.

“This kind of involvement needs to be encouraged because private parties are more flexible, agile, and have more opportunities to get fund from abroad,” the President said. Therefore, the Government will try to encourage private parties to involve in our infrastructure development.

To attract them, according to the President, there are a number of policies that have been carried out but it needs to prepare more schemes so that they would be interested to invest.

“It needs investment climate support, such as regulations and deregulations that provideguarantee to business sector, provide great service that can give good incentives,” the President stated.

If private parties cannot fully involve, they would be offered the next option, that is PPP (Public Private Partnership) and State/Regional-Owned Enterprises cooperation with private parties. The PPP can also beused for critical infrastructures that basically are comercially feasible, but because of tariff determination, it needs support or incentive to guarantee the feasibility of the investment.

“The point is private parties involvement should be encouraged so that infrastucture development can be carried out faster and our national economic would be better,” the President said.

The limited meeting was attended by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Luhut B. Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Darmin Nasution, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli, Minister of State Secretary Pratikno, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, Presidential Chieff of Staff Teten Masduki, Minister of Finance Bambang Brodjonegoro, Minister of National Development Planning/Head of National Development Planning Agency Sofyan Djalil, Minister of Defence Ryamizard Ryacudu, Indonesian National Police Chief Tito Karnavian, Minister of Manpower Hanif Dakhiri, Minister of Industry Saleh Husin, Minister of Trade Thomas Lembong as well as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sudirman Said. (FID/SM/DNA/RHD/ES)(MMB/YM/Naster)