President Chairs Cabinet Plenary Meeting

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) chaired a cabinet plenary meeting at the ministry/state secretariat's main building here on Thursday to discuss several economic issues.

"I have reiterated that we are conducting a deregulation process, and all ministries are required to follow suit," the president remarked while opening the cabinet plenary meeting.

The head of state has emphasized the need to trim all rules that hinder development.

According to Jokowi, a rule has to encourage the people to make a fast move, not to trap them or inhibit growth; and the current deregulation packages were aimed at overcoming any obstacles in the path of investments and business expansion, and thereby, expediting development.

"It will encourage us to win in the competition with other countries," the president stated at the cabinet plenary meeting, which was also attended by Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

The president also noted that the government was focusing on infrastructure development as its availability was the key to reducing logistics costs.

President Jokowi chaired the cabinet plenary meeting on Thursday to discuss four economic matters: the 2016 Draft State Budget Amendment, the 2016 Budget Ceiling savings, priority program and indicative ceiling in the 2017 government working plan, and the acceleration in the Ease of Doing Business and implementation of the one-map policy.

During his working visit to the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon on Monday, President Jokowi remarked at the time that the government was deregulating various rules at the national and regional level that were hampering investments and business.

As a big country, he said Indonesia indeed needed to offer legal protection to investors to encourage rapid economic growth.

The president pointed out that Indonesia now had 42 thousand regulations of which more than three thousand were problematic local regulations.

The head of state also focused on the global competition, emphasizing that the government was working to accelerate the pace of infrastructure development.

"In any country, poor infrastructure will hinder the flow of investment. Equitable development across the regions was a prerequisite," the president noted.

Jokowi also underlined the importance of human resource development, without which Indonesia would not be able to win in a globally competitive world. (WDY)