SBY PRESIDENCY
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a plan on Friday for the G20 member to become one the world's top 10 economies by 2025, though he listed more obstacles and doubts than new investments in much-needed infrastructure.
The government of Southeast Asia's largest economy aims to overhaul its dilapidated transport network, but is relying on the private sector for $100 billion and hopes it will soon win an investment grade sovereign rating to reduce borrowing costs.
"After we launched the masterplan today, what will happen from 2011 until 2025 we don't know, only God knows," Yudhoyono told diplomats, government and business officials in a speech.
The details of the "masterplan" were laid out in a glossy 210-page brochure. The government said it aimed to improve human resources — at the moment only half the workforce went to primary school and 8 percent to university — to become innovation-driven and make higher value products such as steel and chocolate rather than being a top exporter of commodities such as coal and cocoa.
It laid out goals of annual growth of 7.5-9 percent, up from about 6 percent now, and a $4 trillion-$4.5 trillion economy by 2025. It aimed for annual per capita income to rise from about $3,000 now to about $15,000, and for inflation to halve to 3 percent.
Investors are already eyeing strong economic growth, driven by domestic demand, in a country with the world's fourth largest population, and resource exports, and they have poured into the country's stocks and bonds in the past two years.
Fitch Ratings says it could lift the country by one notch within the next 15 months to a coveted investment grade, which would put it on a par with BRIC nations such as Brazil and spur further institutional investment, though risks remain, from controlling inflation to improving infrastructure.
The government said work on a huge Sunda Strait bridge to link Java and Sumatra islands, worth an estimated Rp 150 trillion ($17.5 billion), would start this year, but the project has been stuck at the feasibility stage for years already.
The government said in the masterplan it would be finished in 2025. The other big projects in the document, many already announced, were plans for a new city in Tangerang, west of Jakarta, and for new highways across the province of Papua and the island of Sumatra.
Toll road building has been very slow. Infrastructure developers such as Jasa Marga and Wijaya Karya are relying on a planned land acquisition bill to speed up projects, but it is stuck in parliament.
"I remind you there are five diseases that can make us fail ... If the government, mainly bureaucracy, is slow," Yudhoyono said, adding the others were regional government interests, broken investor promises, obstructing regulations and "unhealthy" political interests.
The government is aiming for public-private partnerships but has yet to launch a major one, and is struggling to spend its 2011 budget as officials worry about being accused of corruption. Most investment comes from the private sector.
Foreign direct investor interest has picked up this year, particularly from Asia, despite risks from red tape to Islamic militancy. Barely a day goes by without the domestic media reporting a new possible foreign investment.
On Friday, for example, Chinese businessmen requested the use of an island for a industrial area, South Korea's Honam Petrochemical Corp expressed interest in a petrochemical plant, and Russia's InterRao said it was studying a $1.2 billion coal port and power plants on Java.
"Without the masterplan most of the projects will run because the initiative comes from private or state-owned enterprises ... This government may freeze. One plan is not yet finished, there's already another plan," Faisal Basri, an economist at the University of Indonesia, said via Twitter.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/bisindonesia/sby-lays-out-plan-to-become-top-10-economy/443618
BERITA LAINNYA:http://sbypresidency.blogspot.com/
Iklan Kerja Online
CHOICES YOUR DREAMS, WANTS AND NEEDS
www.video2be.com
Custom Search
SBY Lays Out Plan to Become Top-10 Economy
Labels:
ECONOMY,
SBY NEWS,
SBY PRESIDENCY
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
Custom Search
0 comments:
Post a Comment