The government is scheduled to announce an economic policy package it expects will help improve Indonesia'€™s economic conditions on Wednesday. The announcement of the policy package is being announced later that its initial target of last week.

'€œIt will be announced on Wednesday,'€ said Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki as quoted by kompas.com at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday.

He refused to provide details on the content of the economic policy package. He said it was Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution who had the sole authority to explain the package to reporters.

'€œPlease ask Pak Darmin about it,'€ said Teten.

Earlier, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo decided to issue a large economic policy package to boost domestic economic growth and bring in foreign currencies needed in the country'€™s efforts to improve the rupiah exchange rate against the US dollar.

Darmin said earlier that the economic package would involve a lot of deregulation. Currently, there are at least 154 regulations that hamper investment, he said.

He later said that the financial terms in the policy package would consist of around six or seven points. The package would contain regulations on various issues, from foreign ownership in the property sector to debt-to-equity ratio control.

Other regulations include directives on the use of village development funds, so that spending is better targeted.

Darmin further explained that the village development funds would be used to cover two or three activities that were most urgent or useful for rural societies.

In the food sector, the policy package will address a number of issues such as the subsidized rice-for-the-poor (raskin) program and efforts to tackle basic commodity needs for poor people during the dry season. (ebf)

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