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OECD urges Indonesia to up infrastructure expenditures

OECD urges Indonesia to up infrastructure expenditures Jakarta, Indonesia (source: flckr/ fidzonflickr, creative commons)
Francisco Rojas 31 Mar 2015

OECD: "Indonesia needs to increase its expenditure on education, health, poverty alleviation and infrastructure (renewable geothermal energy). It is necessary to ensure strong and inclusive economic growth"

The Ministry of Finance from Indonesia has released a press release where the OECD encourages the country to increase expenditure in several areas and to switch toto renewable energy, especially geothermal energy. The following is the official press release.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Survey, Indonesia needs to increase its expenditure on education, health, poverty alleviation and infrastructure. It is necessary to ensure strong and inclusive economic growth.

“To achieve this, in turn, Indonesia needs to increase government revenues and redefine the expenditures priorities,” explains the OECD in the summary of the survey. OECD sees, the government’s decision to cut subsidies on fuel oil (BBM) as the appropriate action to achieve the goal.

In addition, it also considered that Indonesia should take advantage of the abundant natural resources to support the development by increasing investment and improving regulation. Contributions and results in the environmental field also remains low, due to the domination of fossil fuels usage and weak enforcement of laws and regulations, particularly in forestry.

“The abundant natural resources can be better utilized by enhancing productivity in agriculture, improving efficiency in coal-fired power plant, and progressively switch to renewable energy, especially geothermal energy,” said the OECD.

Source: Press Release by the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia