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President will tour regions to promote omnibus bill on job creation: Airlangga
Airlangga said that public objections could be delivered to the House, which is in charge of deliberating the bill.
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Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto gestures during an interview with The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Monday, Feb. 24. 2020.
(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration submitted the controversial 1,028-page omnibus bill on job creation to the House of Representatives on Feb. 12, expecting the deliberations to conclude within 100 working days.
The Jakarta Post’s Nezar Patria, Esther Samboh, Adrian Wail Akhlas and Margareth S. Aritonang recently sat down with Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto to discuss how the omnibus bill on job creation will ease doing business, attract investors, create jobs and boost economic growth.
With protests becoming increasingly virulent from labor unions to environmentalists and human rights groups to regional governments, Airlangga said that public objections could be delivered to the House, which is in charge of deliberating the bill. President Jokowi and the government will also tour regions across the country to raise awareness and public understanding of the bill. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Question: We understand that the omnibus bill is expected to improve Indonesia’s ease of doing business (EODB) ranking, based on the World Bank’s famous index, from the current level of 73rd among 190 countries. But how about job creation, investment and economic growth targets from this job creation bill?
Answer: The 2020-2024 National Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMN) has set an economic growth target of 6 percent. To reach the 6 percent figure, we need faster decision-making, faster licensing processes and to ease the doing of business for small and medium businesses.
To reach the growth target, we will need to attract investment of Rp 1.2 quadrillion (US$87 billion) per year. Under a business-as-usual scenario, we could only attract Rp 800 trillion to Rp 900 trillion at most. So we need to attract an additional Rp 300 trillion in investment per year.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, around 2 million to 2.5 million jobs are created every year. We now aim to increase the number to 3 million jobs, from sectors such as manufacturing, start-up companies and part-time workers.
