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Soekarwo inaugurated as E. Java governor
Soekarwo and Saifullah Yusuf were officially inaugurated as East Javaâs governor and deputy governor Wednesday
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Soekarwo and Saifullah Yusuf were officially inaugurated as East Java's governor and deputy governor Wednesday.
The swearing-in ceremony took place two hours behind the schedule as they had to wait for Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi whose flight was delayed twice.
Soekarwo, who was reelected for a second term, promised in his inauguration speech that he would develop more vocational schools to reduce unemployment in the next five years.
'Within the next five years, we will work to reduce unemployment in East Java by developing more vocational schools. This will help our workforce become skilled so that they can be legally protected when working abroad. They should not become informal workers who often endure abuses on the job,' said Soekarwo in his speech at Grahadi Building, Surabaya, accompanied by Saifullah.
A member of the East Java chapter of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Jamhadi, said Soekarwo's initiatives were in line with what had been expected.
He said 15 percent of the estimated 17 million workers in East Java only had elementary-level educations.
The governor has also said he would aim to strengthen the province's economy by providing assistance to businesses through cooperatives or community groups.
Soekarwo said he was committed to developing East Java as a food producer, and it was targeted that the province could account for 50 percent of the domestic food market by 2017.
'Now, we control 31 percent of the markets and we will continue to expand this market share with our program of 'From East Java to Indonesia',' he said.
From three other gubernatorial candidate pairs who ran in the election, only Eggi Sujana and M. Sihat attended the inauguration ceremony. The remaining two pairs, Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Herman Sumawiredja and Bambang DH-Said Abdullah, were absent. (ebf)
