INS present at the speech of President Joko Widodo for Indonesians

23 Apr 2016

At the evening of his arrival in the Netherlands, Thursday 21 April, President Joko Widodo in the Kurhaus Hotel in Scheveningen delivered a speech to the Indonesian community in the Netherlands in which he explained his policies.

The Indonesia Nederland Society considers it a great honour to also be invited to this particularly Indonesian event and was deeply impressed by the personality of President Jokowi, who indeed is a charismatic orator.

Once inside president Joko Widodo made a round through the audience to shake hands and allowing to make ‘selfies’. After singing the national anthem ‘Indonesia Raya’, the president spoke for about one and a half hour about the economic situation of Indonesia, his priorities in enhancing the welfare of middle class and poor Indonesians, the very much needed infrastructural improvements and the necessary drive-back of the bureaucracy.

The main issues of the present government are:

+ Improving national industry competitiveness

+ Improvement in investment license and export tax cut

+ Improving credit coverage by cut in energy prices

+ Improving people’s welfare and social security

+ Improving business and investment climate, especially for small and medium sized businesses

+ SEZ in 8 regions and boost access to strategic commodities

+ Boost labour intensive industry

+ One map policy, building oil refinery and incentive for aviation industry

+ Building infrastructure for electricity and logistics

+ Export oriented credit, tax cut for real estate investment and dwelling time reduction

+ Development of infrastructure by raising the budget with 76%:  trans-Sumatra highway (2019); trans-Papua highway; Papua/PNG border road (2016); trans-Java highway; trans-Celebes highway; bridge on Ambon; ongoing railway construction Sulawesi (2019); construction of dams (5 operational, 11 in progress, 13 new development)

In closing President Jokowi allowed three questions and Rennie Roos of the Indonesian Youth Society took the opportunity to draw attention to the inevitability of longer residence permits for Dutch youngsters that want to study in Indonesia. He presented the president with a INYS pin, that was gracefully accepted.

All in all it was a very pleasant meeting that the Board of INS much appreciated.