President Jokowi Explains the Importance of Indonesia Infrastructure Development

JAKARTA - Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that he wants Indonesia's competitiveness better than other countries. Therefore, infrastructure development is important in Indonesia.

"Why our infrastructure is built? The answer is there, we want our competitiveness better than other countries. Our global competitiveness must be improved, this year is pretty good soaring from (rank) 41 to 36 from 137 countries," said President Jokowi as reported from setkab.go.id (18/10/17).

This was presented when he gave an oration in the 60th Diponegoro University Dies Natalis in Semarang, Central Java. Infrastructure development is also to overcome the cost of logistics transportation in Indonesia which is more expensive 2.5 times more than Malaysia and Singapore.

The President explains why he always talks about infrastructure on many occasions. In addition to the State Budget (APBN) which focuses on infrastructure, another reason is to catch up with infrastructure development. In fact, the budget for infrastructure has been prepared and upgraded by the government from Rp177 trillion in 2014 to Rp401 trillion in 2017.

Port is one of the infrastructures built by the government. Starting from Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Kuala Tanjung Port in North Sumatra, and Makassar New Port in South Sulawesi. The plan next year the government will also start the construction of ports in Sorong, Papua.

"Why we must build? Because our country is an archipelago state, the maritime foundation base is a must," said Jokowi. Similarly with the airport development, Indonesia as a large country with 17 thousand islands, but not all the island can be stopped by the ship.

"Hence also on the remote islands of Natuna, Miangas, we are building an airport. This is just one example because we built a lot of small airports," said the President.