​Indonesia: Vision 2019-2024

INDONESIA - Report 31 Jul 2019 by Cyrillus Harinowo

President Joko Widodo, acting as president-elect for 2019-2024, recently outlined his vision for the second term of his presidency. His speech was a strong one, showing his great confidence in running his second term, starting in October 2019. There are five priorities that President Joko Widodo would like to manage in the next five years of his presidency.

Of the five priorities, the first remains the development of the country's infrastructure, with the next infrastructure projects to connect the Trunk Road, such as the Trans Java toll road, to productive areas including the tourist regions. The second priority is to develop human resources with improved healthcare, education and vocational training, to make the labor force more competitive in the region. The third is to promote investment, especially foreign direct investment, by slashing regulations or institutions that hamper investment activities. The fourth is to implement a bureaucratic reform, by reviewing institutions overall, so that the country can have a leaner and more competitive bureaucracy. The final priority is a more targeted and efficient use of the government budget.

The vision set out by the president will later be translated by his team as the work plan to be executed by his administration. However, the launch of Vision 2019-2024 is a very important step in guiding the government apparatus for the next five years.

In June 2019, the trade balance released by the Central Board of Statistics registered another surplus, at $196 million. Exports in June reached $11,779.8 million, down 20.54% month over month and 8.98% year over year. Meanwhile, imports reached $11,583.8 million, a decline of 20.7% month over month, although slightly higher year over year. The declines in both exports and imports were due to the Moslem holidays, which took place for about ten days in the beginning of June, shutting down all the port activities during that period, and resulting in the June surplus. However, even with that surplus, the total trade balance for the first half of 2019 still registered a deficit of $1,933.9 million.

The Central Board of Statistics also released the inflation report, which showed inflation of 0.55% for the month of June 2019. With that performance, year-over-year inflation stood at 3.28%, a level at the lower end of the target corridor of the Central Bank. Such mild inflation, as well as sanguine external balance, led the Central Bank to cut the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 5.75% in order to expand the economy further. The new benchmark was set at the monetary policy meeting in July 2019.

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