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S senator Richard Lugar paid a courtesy call to Vice President Boediono on Wednesday, offering his congratulations for Indonesia’s success in maintaining strong economic growth and robust democracy.

“We want to hear directly [from Boediono] about the development plan of Indonesia, a country with 240 million in population, and about the policies for the people with a daily income lower than US$2,” Lugar said in his first comment in the meeting, as quoted by an official release by the Vice President’s office.

Boediono replied, saying that Indonesia’s middle-term targets included 7 to 8 percent economic growth. “To ensure that the targets are realized, we must enhance the quality of our development policies. For example, we intervene with the poor by directly providing inexpensive rice.”

Lugar apparently avoided issues that Yudhoyono’s critics have attributed to an absence of government action, such as the increasing persecution of religious minorities in Indonesia.

The senator expressed appreciation for Indonesia’s counterterrorism work. “Indonesia has great experience in successfully combating terrorism, so we admire the remarkable ability of Indonesia. We have learned a great deal. Indonesia and the US have a strong and stable partnership on terrorism,” he said.

On education, Boediono told Lugar that he hoped the US would maintain its scholarship programs for Indonesians wishing to study in the US.

US Ambassador to Indonesia Scott Marciel, who accompanied Lugar to the meeting, said that the US Embassy in Jakarta had approved almost 95 percent of the visa applications submitted Indonesian students.

“The past two years have seen a 30 percent increase in the number of Indonesian youths wishing to study in the US,” Marciel said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after having a bilateral meeting with Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in Jakarta in September, said that the US government had allocated $103 million to support projects for improving basic education sector in Indonesia over the next five years.

Other topics discussed in the meeting included trade and investment.

Lugar, a Republican representing Indiana in the senate, arrived in Jakarta after making official visits to Manila, the Philippines.

He is the ranking member of the senate’s foreign relations committee and the third most member of the US Senate. He lost his reelection bid in a primary race and will end his sixth term in January 2013.

Lugar made his first visit to Indonesia in 1986, when he met president Soeharto in Jakarta.