Jember determined to control inflation

JEMBER: The regency administration has formed a joint team with the local office of the Central Bank (BI) and the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) in an effort to control the inflation rate, stabilize index prices and improve local people's purchasing power.

"With the team, Jember will be able to push inflation below the national level in 2009," A. Rasyid Madjid, head of the local office of Bank Indonesia, said after the establishment of the team here Monday.

He said the team's primary tasks were to monitor index prices and recommend measures that the local administration should take to maintain the prices of strategic and basic commodities.

Jember Regent MZA Djalal said his administration and the banks have enhanced cooperation to accelerate the real sector in efforts to improve the people's purchasing power and help cope with the unemployment problem.

"We are encouraging microfinance and small-scale enterprises to improve their productivity by recruiting more workers and protecting their products to meet local market demand," he said.

He added that his main goal in the next year would be to press the inflation rate below 10 percent.

Head of the local office of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Nela Oktaviana said the regency's November inflation rate of 0.6 percent was expected to remain the same this month. -- JP