"It seems so, for example, there are G20 meetings, and it looks like they are greeting each other, but they are competing with each other,” he observed.
He made the statement during the “National Working Meeting on Strategy for Family Development, Population, and Family Planning and the Program to Accelerate Stunting Reduction” in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Not only at the global level, as seen during the meeting of G20 countries that control 85 percent of the world's economy, neighboring countries in the Southeast Asian region are also competing fiercely for investment and technology, he pointed out.
"In ASEAN itself, you see us hugging, greeting, but we are competing. All countries are fighting over investments and technology,” he remarked.
Therefore, the President said improving the quality of human resources (HR) has become an important key to building the nation's competitiveness to attract investment to develop technology.
"The key is having a good quality of human resources," he added.
Given the importance of human resource quality, the President asked the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) to carry out its duties to help maintain balanced growth and improve the quality of families.
"Creating a quality family is not easy, but I believe 1.2 million extension workers at the BKKBN and their assistants are able to do that. This means that good human resources are the key to the nation's competitiveness," he said.
The government is relying on investment to maintain the trend of economic recovery in 2023. In this regard, President Jokowi has set this year's investment target of Rp1,400 trillion or higher than that of last year which stood at Rp1,200 trillion.
With investment support, Indonesia is targeting economic growth of 5.3 percent in 2023.
Related news: Optimistic of reaching investment target if political stability good
Related news: Need stability to achieve 2023 investment target: Minister
Translator: Cindy Frishanti Octavia
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2023
