In his address, the vice president praised the companies for managing their products in such a way that they could give added value and compete with their foreign rivals.
"If they do not make good products, they will lose to Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai producers," he noted.
He also encouraged national companies to increase the productivity of their workers through training and educational courses.
"Training is needed to improve their skills to enable them to compete with foreign workers and automation," he said.
They could improve their skills, among others, through job training centers which are found in various parts of the country, he remarked.
The vice president asked regional governments to increase the budget allocations for the job training centers to increase the productivity of the workers.
Manpower Minister M Hanif Dhakiri stressed that the productivity of Indonesian workers had increased in the past few years, although they were still unable to compete with those of the neighboring countries.
"Our productivity is still below that of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. In fact, Japan has productivity four times as high as ours," he stated.
He expressed hope that the awards would encourage other companies to improve the productivity of their workers.
Since 1994, the Indonesian president has bestowed such awards to companies every two years, in recognition of their success in increasing their productivity.
This year the awards were given to 30 out of the 192 companies assessed for their productivity.
Reported by Arie Novarina
(T.S012/B/KR-BSR/F001)
Reporter: antara
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
