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nder fire for the sluggish realization of his campaign promises, President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo attempted to boost optimism among business players on Thursday, but offered few tangible steps to reverse the country'€™s economic slowdown .

For businesses, the short-term economic condition would be '€œbitter'€ during a period of stabilization, but things would improve in the long run, Jokowi told hundreds of economists, businesspeople and academics during a gathering held by the Indonesian Economists Association (ISEI).

Jokowi said he hoped the economy would reverse course when budget disbursement begun to pick up in the third quarter, before accelerating sharply in the years to come.

The President promised that state budget funds '€” a large chunk of which had been earmarked for infrastructure projects '€” would be spent more effectively under his watch. In 2016, government spending was expected to contribute between 0.5 and 1 percent to economic growth, from between 0.1 and 0.3 percent currently, he said.

Jokowi added that he planned to boost foreign direct investment (FDI) realization from China, Germany, Japan and the US, but emphasized that he prioritized local business players in his economic development plan.

'€œLadies and gentlemen, you have money stashed in your banks, houses, or in Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong. Do not just '€˜wait-and-see'€™,'€ he said, calling for participation in infrastructure projects.

'€œIt'€™s all about opportunity. There are questions coming to me later on why [these projects] are given to foreign investors, but in fact I have made you my priority.'€

Jokowi also took time to defend the various economic reforms that he had implemented, with the President unpopular among investors for his anti-import policy, which has contributed to a pick-up in inflation, as well as for his hard-line stance on a ban on mineral ore exports.

Certain countries, according to the President, are now seeing economic contraction because they have failed to adapt to a changing world where commodity exports cannot be relied on to spur growth. '€œThe deep, structural overhaul that the government is now undertaking is painful and bitter, but we cannot afford to delay it anymore,'€ he said.

Concerns about Jokowi'€™s economic management have arisen lately after economic growth fell to a five-year low of 4.7 percent in the first quarter this year, a far cry from the 5.7 percent assumed by the government in the revised 2015 state budget.

Economists fear that the economic situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon given that state budget disbursement has been sluggish. Meanwhile, leading indicators, such as growth in sales of cement and motorcycles, remain gloomy.

Consequently, the economic growth print for the April-June period may be '€œslightly lower'€ than the first quarter figure of 4.7 percent, Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Mirza Adityaswara has forecast.

'€œThere is a perception among the public that the government'€™s performance is not satisfactory,'€ said Darmin Nasution, an economist and former BI governor.

Darmin, who is also chairman of ISEI, lambasted what he called an '€œineffective'€ state budget disbursement process, also criticizing the government'€™s '€œdisruptive'€ tax-collection efforts.

The Jokowi administration aims to collect Rp 1.29 quadrillion in tax revenues this year, 30 percent more than last year, a target considered unrealistic given the slow growth in tax revenues this year.

'€œThis is not in line with the accommodative fiscal policy designed to counter the growth slowdown,'€ said Darmin, a former director general of the Finance Ministry'€™s tax office.

Suryo Bambang Sulisto, the chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), acknowledged that the President'€™s speech was '€œmusic to businesspeople'€™s ears'€.

However, he argued that the current administration could do more to redress the current economic woes, complaining of red tape and a lack of coordination and communication between ministries.