Indonesia to boost spending on infrastructure amid global recession
JAKARTA, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia planned to raise spending on infrastructure next year to 100 trillion rupiah (some 9.2 billion U.S. dollars) from this year's 60 trillion rupiah (about 5.5 billion U.S. dollars) to create jobs and boost economic growth in an effort to cushion the impact of the global financial routs, the finance ministry said here Wednesday.
The global economic turmoil is predicted to deepen in 2009, particularly in the first quarter, Indonesian acting Coordinating Minister for Economy Sri Muyani Indrawati has said.
The Southeast Asian largest economy is less dependent on exports for growth, and more reliant on food production, domestic transportation and other industries which need better infrastructures.
Therefore, the government plans to create new infrastructure projects and to speed up the realization of already planned projects, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla has said.
"We increase spending for next year to 100 trillion rupiah to finance infrastructure projects that quickly need many workers to spur growth," deputy of infrastructure affairs of the ministry Bambang Susantono told Xinhua over phone.
The fund would be obtained from the country's state budget and overseas loans, the deputy said.
But he did not elaborate the split of the fund from the two sources. For overseas loan, Susantono said that it would be from the standby loans of over 4 billion U.S. dollars being approached by the government to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Japanand Australia.
Recently, Australia has committed to loan 1 billion U.S. dollars to Indonesia.
Indonesia is predicted to grow 4.5 percent next year, according to the government, and 4.4 percent by the World Bank prediction.
The global recession has stressed the entrepreneurs in the country and lead them to cut over 40,000 workers this year and the number is predicted to rise in the coming months. Besides, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian migrant workers would return home next year after layoffs.
The global economic downturn has battered Indonesia in the past three months: prices for commodity exports have plunged, and the stock market fell so steeply in October that it closed for three days.
The global economic turmoil is predicted to deepen in 2009, particularly in the first quarter, Indonesian acting Coordinating Minister for Economy Sri Muyani Indrawati has said.
The Southeast Asian largest economy is less dependent on exports for growth, and more reliant on food production, domestic transportation and other industries which need better infrastructures.
Therefore, the government plans to create new infrastructure projects and to speed up the realization of already planned projects, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla has said.
"We increase spending for next year to 100 trillion rupiah to finance infrastructure projects that quickly need many workers to spur growth," deputy of infrastructure affairs of the ministry Bambang Susantono told Xinhua over phone.
The fund would be obtained from the country's state budget and overseas loans, the deputy said.
But he did not elaborate the split of the fund from the two sources. For overseas loan, Susantono said that it would be from the standby loans of over 4 billion U.S. dollars being approached by the government to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Japanand Australia.
Recently, Australia has committed to loan 1 billion U.S. dollars to Indonesia.
Indonesia is predicted to grow 4.5 percent next year, according to the government, and 4.4 percent by the World Bank prediction.
The global recession has stressed the entrepreneurs in the country and lead them to cut over 40,000 workers this year and the number is predicted to rise in the coming months. Besides, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian migrant workers would return home next year after layoffs.
The global economic downturn has battered Indonesia in the past three months: prices for commodity exports have plunged, and the stock market fell so steeply in October that it closed for three days.