Therefore, Asia must invest more in order to improve productivity, which serves as the most sustainable source of growth, she added.
"Whether it is investment for education, manpower, macro policies, or infrastructure which are very much needed to improve dynamics and productivity of people," the minister said in a post on her official Instagram handle @smindrawati, which was accessed from here on Thursday.
The seminar was also attended by Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong; Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman; Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, Niels Annen; and President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Masatsugu Asakawa.
In the current interconnected world, multilateralism is the best way to rise and recover from crisis, she said in response to a question.
In order to make this multilateralism effective, each member must be able to show good governance and establish public trust, she noted. The spirit to work together in forums, whether multilateral or regional, such as the G20, ADB, ASEAN, and ASEAN+3, is the most important thing for facing global turmoil, Indrawati added.
When the president of SOAS London University, Zeinab Badawi, asked how inequality in Asia, which is becoming more apparent, can be addressed, the minister replied by sharing fiscal policies undertaken by Indonesia.
"There are many fiscal policy instruments to address inequalities, both on revenue and expenditures," she pointed out.
In terms of revenue, tax policies must be designed in a progressive way, without compromising the motivation to get a salary, she said. Whereas on the expenditure front, there are many initiatives that can be undertaken to alleviate poverty, cut intergenerational poverty, and improve education and health, among others, Indrawati added.
In Indonesia, the government has used the extra revenue from the commodity boom to invest in the development of remote areas as well as vulnerable groups, such as women and children.
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Translator: Agatha Olivia Victoria, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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