Jakarta – During his decade leading Indonesia, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) emphasized that the development carried out by the government has had a positive impact on all levels of society.
According to him, the infrastructure that has been built massively has succeeded in increasing the welfare and ease of life for the people.
Jokowi detailed that the government has built 366,000 kilometers of village roads, 1.9 million meters of village bridges, 2,700 kilometers of new toll roads, 6,000 kilometers of national roads, 50 new ports and airports, as well as 43 dams and 1.1 million hectares of new irrigation networks.
“This infrastructure helps reduce logistics costs from 24 percent to 14 percent in 2023,” said Jokowi.
Reducing logistics costs, he added, is one of the keys to improving the investment climate in Indonesia.
The Head of State stated that Indonesia’s economic competitiveness has increased rapidly.
“Our competitiveness rose from 55th to 27th in 2024,” he stressed.
He also emphasized that eastern Indonesia, such as Papua and Maluku, were able to record economic growth of above 6 percent, while North Maluku even grew by more than 20 percent.
In addition to infrastructure, several key economic indicators have also shown improvement over the past 10 years. Jokowi noted that the extreme poverty rate has been reduced from 6.1 percent to 0.8 percent in 2024.
The stunting rate dropped significantly from 37.2 percent to 21.5 percent in 2023, and the unemployment rate decreased from 5.7 percent to 4.8 percent in 2024.
President Jokowi also highlighted the government’s success in taking over several important state assets previously managed by foreign parties, such as Freeport, Rokan Block, and Newmont.
“We want the wealth of this country to be fully utilized for the welfare of the people,” said Jokowi.
Previously, the Minister of National Development Planning (PPN)/Head of Bappenas, Suharso Monoarfa, also reported that Indonesia’s economic growth remained stable at around 5 percent.
“Indonesia’s economic contribution to the global economy has increased to 2.5 percent, surpassing major countries such as Brazil, France and the UK,” said Suharso.
He added that job creation would almost triple, from 1.87 million in 2014 to 4.55 million in 2023.
“The distribution of development is also getting better, as seen from the decline in the Gini ratio from 0.406 in 2014 to 0.388 in 2023,” explained Suharso.