That is quite good, however, it is still important for the country`s economy to be more adaptive to global changes."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesia National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) said the country would focus national development on three main sectors to drive forward the economy.

The three sectors are prerequisite for a country to make progress in development, Bappenas chief and National Development Planning Minister Bambang Permadi Soemantri Brodjonegoro said here on Saturday (Dec. 31, 2016).

One of the sectors is manufacture that needs to be boosted to be sustainable and competitive, Bambang said.

"We have to revive and push development of the manufacturing sector with products competitive both in domestic and global markets," the minister said.

The second sector is service sector including tourism, communications and information service, financial service and other services.

"Service sector also has to be expanded. The manufacturing sector is not enough as we need sectors that provide many jobs. The tourism service is potential," he said.

The third sector is infrastructure as Indonesia is still lagging far behind in availability of infrastructure, which is instrumental to push economic growth, he said.

The infrastructure sector, both when projects are under construction and after being operational is vital and could provide many jobs, he said.

"Therefore, we need to concentrate on the three sectors," he said.

The minister said the government would avoid dependence on natural resources in carrying on with its development program in 2017.

"The government would seek to create sustainable economic development program in the future. Growth is no longer dependent on commodities and natural resources, which are very vulnerable to fluctuation," the minister said in a discussion on 'Year end Evaluation 2016 and Hope 2017'.

Bambang said the economy improved 2016 from 2015 when commodity price fall hit the rock bottom from which the price rebounded in 2016.

Meanwhile, the countrys economy began to wake and could cushion the worst impact of the commodity price fall.

"And it happened the price began to pick up. However, the government would continue to seek other way to sustain the growth," he said.

The government wanted to avoid relying on resources which are highly vulnerable to sharp fluctuations, the minister said.

"The government no longer wants to see the economy to be beset by extreme up and down for high dependence exports of commodities. When the prices fall, exports would lose its contribution to economy," he said.

Dependence on a number of commodities the countrys economy has been badly hit slump, therefore, the government is set to reduce dependence on one commodity for growth, he said.

The time has come for the government to seek to create sustainable economic growth, to minimize the impact of commodity price fall in the future, the minister said.

The minister predicted the countrys economy would grow 5.1-5.3 percent in 2017 and the household consumption still is the main growth driver.

He also said the magnitude and impact of the global economic uncertainty remained unpredictable.

However, amid the global economic slowdown, Indonesia could still manage a positive growth of 5.1 percent in 2016," he said.

That means Indonesias economy is quite resistant to global economic turbulence, he said.

"That is quite good, however, it is still important for the countrys economy to be more adaptive to global changes," he said.
(Uu.H-ASG/B003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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