The Jakarta Post
We fully support the latest initiatives of the government to accelerate the reduction of inequality in asset ownership and income distribution through land distribution, free land titles and the nucleus estate-smallholder (NES) scheme. The more concerted programs seem to have been warranted by the finding of the latest economic surveys, including one by the World Bank in 2014, showing the widening inequality in the ownership of financial and physical assets as the richest 10 percent of Indonesians own an estimated 77 percent of the country’s wealth. This means that income from financial and physical assets (such as land) benefits far fewer households in Indonesia than in many other countries. The Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry has set itself a target of granting 5 million land titles this year at a cost of Rp 2 trillion (US$148 million), which will be fully financed b...