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Industrialization won’t work without skilled workforce: Jokowi
Infrastructure investment is not enough to move the country forward, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo told The Jakarta Post in an exclusive interview earlier this month.
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo talks to The Jakarta Post journalists during an interview at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Nov. 2. (JP/Abdur Rahim)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has stressed the need to improve the country’s human capital, arguing that investment in this field must complement the government’s massive infrastructure push.
Jokowi said both human capital and infrastructure were the “foundations” for the country to “begin the next great task” of becoming an economic powerhouse.
“If we cannot complete this [process of developing human capital], it will be hard to industrialize, and from there to [move to] technology, to innovation. It would be difficult,” the President told The Jakarta Post in an exclusive interview on Nov. 2.
The latest Human Development Index (HDI) survey – a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) assessment of life expectancy, education and living standards – ranks Indonesia in 114th place worldwide, far below regional peers Malaysia and Thailand, which are ranked 62nd and 66th, respectively.
The World Bank’s Human Capital Index (HCI), meanwhile, which looks at how a country’s health and education systems affect workers' productivity, places Indonesia at rank 96 globally, again far below Malaysia and Thailand, which sit in positions 62 and 63, respectively.
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The President said that in the final two years of his presidential term, he was rushing to develop the human capital necessary for further industrialization so that the country’s targets for developing downstream industries could be realized before the 2035 deadline.
