"Even though the economic growth of India and China has been better than Indonesias, the quality of Indonesias economic growth is more real and concrete," President Joko Widodo said in his remarks during the opening of a meeting of the leaders of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) here on Thursday.
The president remarked that the economic growth was seen through a countrys gini ratio. The poverty rate and the unemployment rate also witnessed some decline.
The president said several foreign investors have expressed interest to invest in Indonesia, also because of the ease of licensing policies.
"Now, they have started discussions on specific projects. The foreign investors are discussing the investment period and the total number of investments," the president pointed out.
In his speech, the president urged Kadin to ensure that foreign investors interest in Indonesia remains high.
"The investors will look for domestic partners. Kadin can utilize the momentum to help development in Indonesia," the president added.
The Indonesian central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), earlier revised down its forecast for Indonesias economic growth in 2017 from 5.1-5.5 percent to 5.0-5.4 percent, because the global economy is not expected to fully recover next year.
"We have to make adjustments by revising down the previous growth forecast, because the world economic growth in 2016 has turned out to be worse than last year," BI Governor Agus Martowardojo told a press conference here on Thursday.
Agus has predicted that the global economic condition in 2017 would be affected by the impact of the 2016 economic downturn. This is a challenge that forces BI to continue revising down its growth forecast.
"Various international bodies and research results of qualified institutions have also revised down their global economic growth predictions for 2017," Agus explained.
Apart from that, the revision of the growth projection was also based on credit growth, which is expected to increase only after the end of the second quarter of 2017 following the gloomy global economic period in 2016.(WDY)
