President Jokowi: Infrastructure Development Could Not Be Postponed Again!

JAKARTA - It's widely known on public that Indonesian Government in the reign of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) focuses to develop infrastructure to improve the economy and the life quality of the people. To accelerate infrastructure development, the Government is now working to set up a financing scheme so there will be no priority project delayed.

President Jokowi has given a target on his staff for maintain the progress of the entire national priority infrastructure programs, so it can be completed in 2017 and 2018. Infrastructure financing schemes have an important role given the limitations of the state budget, hence it takes a variety of financing schemes from the government to accelerate infrastructure development.

"Infrastructure development can not be delayed any longer because once we withdraw, we delay the financing and it will be more larger, and we want this also supports the acceleration of our economic growth," said President Jokowi as reported from ksp.go.id (12/4/ 2017).

President Jokowi stressed that the private sector could finance infrastructure development. However, the government is also preparing another scheme namely the Public Private Partnership (PPP) or Cooperation between the Government and Business Entities (KPBU). In addition, the role of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and the Regional Owned Enterprises (enterprises) are also expected to contribute to the financing of infrastructure.

"The last option is the pursued with financing from the state budget or the budget," said the President.

The process of securitization in SOEs, namely the sale of assets in order to reinvest the proceeds used for development are also discussed in the meeting. The President hopes that this securitization process can be carried out so it can accelerate the development process.

"We also can conduct securitization to get a fresh budget, fresh money from the market so it can accelerate infrastructure development not only in Java but also outside Java," he said.