Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said the government has succeeded in reducing open unemployment from 5.7 percent to 5.13 percent over the past year.

"Productive generation, which grows fast forces us to work the harder to create new jobs," the president said in state of the nation address at a plenary session of the People`s Consultative Assembly here on Thursday.

The President said the government has launched big reform to improve the climate of ease of doing business in the country to create a more productive and competitive economy.

The ease of doing business would increase the country`s self reliance, that would contribute to opening more jobs and reducing unemployment, he said.

The government wants to improve the welfare of the entire people ,therefore, the government has paid attention to not only the interest of big enterprises, but also small scale businesses (UMKM) and the people of the lowest social stratum that make up 40 percent of the population, he said.

He said Indonesia has entered the ranks of countries with "high human development" because of continued improvement in the quality of human life.

He said index of human development grew from 68.90 in 2014 to 70.81 in 2017.

Reporting by Dewanto Samodro
Editing by A Saragih, Fardah Assegaf

Reporter: antara
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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