"The President will inaugurate the projects soon," he said at the "Eight Years of National Strategic Projects" event in Jakarta.
The eight strategic projects consist of five toll road constructions in Java and Sumatra, the Labuan Bajo tourism area in East Nusa Tenggara, the Merah Putih Catalyst Industry in West Java, and the Weda Bay Industrial Park in North Maluku.
During the event, Hartarto also presented a book titled "Infrastructure Transformation towards the Golden Indonesia: Reflections on the Implementation of the PSN Series" to record the development of PSN.
Citing a study from the Indonesia-Australia Partnership Program for the Economy (Prospera), he said that PSNs had been able to achieve economic equality in Indonesia.
The achievement is reflected in the distribution of PSNs across the country. There are 25 projects in Sumatra, 16 projects in Kalimantan, 17 projects in Sulawesi, 15 projects in Bali and Nusa Tenggara, 10 projects in Maluku and Papua, 50 projects in Java, and four national scale projects.
To date, 161 PSNs have been completed, with a total value of Rp1,134.9 trillion (around US$73.9 million) over eight years, he remarked.
On the same occasion, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that due to massive infrastructure development, Indonesia's competitiveness rank had risen from 44th in 2022 to 34th this year, according to the International Institute for Management Development.
He stated that in the last eight years, 11 million workers had been absorbed due to the completion of 161 PSNs, and that the big number of workers is also one of the factors in increasing Indonesia's competitiveness.
Jokowi instructed that all PSNs be completed in the first semester of 2024.
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Translator: Bayu Saputra, Resinta S
Editor: Anton Santoso
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