President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has expressed his wish that Indonesia will be able to emulate South Korea’s success in overcoming the middle-income trap to become an economically advanced country.
“South Korea, for example, successfully overcame the middle-income trap in just eight years,” he said during the final design of the 2025-2045 National Long-term Development Plan (RPJPN) launch event in Jakarta recently.
He noted that while South Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was only around US$3,500 in 1987, but the figure rose to over US$11,800 in just eight years.
“We should emulate such a leap, focusing on the quality of human resources, technology, and productivity,” Jokowi affirmed.
He highlighted the need to improve the quality of national human resources to capitalise on Indonesia’s demographic dividend, where the majority of the population will be in the productive age group from 2030 to 2035.
Indonesia should aim for superiority in terms of the quality of its human resources, rather than merely relying on its productive population numbers, he stressed.
“Aspects such as physical fitness, skills, character, productivity, and discipline should be thoroughly improved, as well as our capabilities in science and technology,” Jokowi stated.
He also underscored several key aspects to achieve the vision, which includes national stability, sustainable leadership, Indonesia-centric development, industrial downstream, and the development of the new capital city, Nusantara.
Jokowi expressed optimism that the long-term development planning would pave the way for achieving the Golden Indonesia vision by Indonesia’s independence centenary in 2045.
During the event, the Minister of National Development Planning and Head of the National Development Planning Agency, Suharso Monoarfa, stated that the finalization of the 2025-2045 RPJPN is expected to conclude by September 2023. – Antara
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