The legislator stressed that the government should also give serious attention to the economic quality which has not yet been able to curb poverty.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government needs to evaluate the country`s economic growth quality, particularly its effect on enhancing and reducing the poverty rate, a legislator said.

"The relatively high economic growth of 2011 was not ideal to provide enough employment opportunities to absorb the workers, since it was only able to give jobs to 1.5 million new workers," said Deputy Chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) Faction of the House of Representatives (DPR) Sohibul Iman here on Wednesday.

He pointed out that the government`s target of one percent in its economic growth last year would have provided employment to 450,000 workers allowing for a 6.5 percent economic growth to absorb its 292,000 workers.

The legislator stressed that the government should also give serious attention to the economic quality which has not yet been able to curb poverty.

The decrease in the number of poor people in the March 2011 - 2012 period was lower than anticipated. In this period only about 890,000 poor people were removed from under poverty line, as opposed to the one million in the same period over the previous year, he asserted.

"The reduction in the number of poor people in the March 2011 - March 2012 was even lower than that of the March 2010 - March 2011 period which reached 1.5 million," he stressed.

On the occasion, Sohibul also reminded the government of the importance to be more progressive in directing its fiscal policies to handle various problems in the upstream areas that had so far caused poverty to develop in villages and agricultural areas.

"The government needs to note this for the improvement in its direction of development and its fiscal policies in the future," the legislator added.

However, Sohibul hailed the country`s economic growth which reached 6.5 percent in 2011. "This is a good growth trend which continued to rise from 6.1 percent in 2010 and 4.6 percent in 2009," he added.

The PKS House Faction chairman said the government needed to maintain this upward economic growth trend amid uncertain global economic conditions.

He also appreciated the government`s success in tackling the inflation rate and bring it under control at only 3.79 percent in 2011 which was far lower than the assumed figure of the 2011 state budget which stood at 5.65 percent with the inflation rate touching 6.96 percent in 2010.

"We ask the government to work and consistently cooperate with Bank Indonesia in curbing inflation at a lower rate in an effort to ensure better purchasing power for the people," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012