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Soekarwo, Saifullah pledge to boost economic sector

East Java Governor Soekarwo and Deputy Governor Saifullah Yusuf have committed to strengthening the province’s economy in the next five years as they started their second term of office on Wednesday

Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post)
Surabaya
Thu, February 13, 2014

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Soekarwo, Saifullah pledge to boost economic sector

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ast Java Governor Soekarwo and Deputy Governor Saifullah Yusuf have committed to strengthening the province'€™s economy in the next five years as they started their second term of office on Wednesday.

Soekarwo said he aimed to provide more loans that would be channeled through either cooperatives or targeted at communities, such as farmers, fishermen and small and medium businesses (UKM).

He committed to turning East Java into a province dominating 50 percent of the domestic food product market by 2017.

'€œWe currently have around 31 percent [of the domestic market] and we are aiming to achieve more,'€ Soekarwo said in his speech during the inauguration ceremony at Grahadi Building in Surabaya on Wednesday.

The provincial administration, he went on, would also fix and build more roads to smooth transportation.

'€œIn the next five years, we also pledge to reduce the unemployment rate in East Java by establishing more vocational schools. We aim to turn our people into skilled workers who are well protected once they decide to work abroad,'€ said Soekarwo.

According to Jamhadi, a member of the expert team at the Surabaya branch of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Soekarwo and Saifullah had done well in their first term as there were 19.7 million workers in the province. Of that number, around 53 percent are elementary school graduates.

Jamhadi said there was an increase in people'€™s per capita income from Rp 1.006 trillion (US$84 million) when the pair began their first term of office in 2009 to Rp 1.147 trillion by the end of their first term in office.

The 15-percent hike, Jamhadi went on, had also increased people'€™s purchasing power to 8 percent.

In terms of exports and imports, the province tended to be stagnant, but this could be covered by the surplus in inter-island trade, which reached around Rp 270 trillion.

In last year'€™s election, the Soekarwo-Syaifullah ticket secured 47.25 percent of the vote in the election, followed by the Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Herman Sumawiredja ticket, which secured 37.62 percent of the vote.

However, Soekarwo and Saifullah do not appear to have a strategy to to resolve religious issues involving Shia followers in Sampang, Madura.

'€œWe will take a cultural approach. The progress might be little, but it can solve the problem,'€ Soekarwo added.

There are at least 184 displaced Sampang Shiites living in Puspa Agro low-cost apartment in Jemundo district, Sidoarjo regency, after being evicted in August 2012 when hundreds of people damaged their settlement.

Two people were killed, while 10 homes were razed during the incident.

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