Avoid The Belenggu Middle Income Trap, Sri Mulyani: Indonesia Towards High-Income Countries

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that Indonesia continues to make various strategic efforts to be able to become a country that avoids medium income traps or middle income traps.

"Indonesia is heading to high-income countries through various institutional reforms and policies," he said in Jakarta when receiving a visit from Harvard University graduate students, quoted Wednesday, January 11.

According to the Minister of Finance, the Indonesian government pays special attention to several aspects that can accelerate the dream of becoming a developed country, such as improving in terms of human resources.

"We also do many things, ranging from bureaucratic reform, economic transformation, good fiscal policy implementation, to infrastructure development," he said.

In addition, the Minister of Finance revealed that infrastructure is an important part of becoming a developed country. The reason is, there are no high-income countries if the infrastructure is left behind.

The challenge for us is a large, geographically archipelagic country and it must be ensured that connectivity is not only on large islands but also on small islands. So in this case, infrastructure is not as simple as building toll roads. We have to talk about connectivity, including ports, airports and internet networks," he explained.

Furthermore, the state treasurer conveyed that fiscal discipline and institutional reform structurally are also very important, including in the form of eradicating corrupt practices, encouraging transparency and accountability.

For a country to perform better, to produce higher productivity and better growth must work hard. That's what we do in the context of this travel year," he added.

The Minister of Finance also said that Indonesia was increasing the use of renewable energy in dealing with the climate crisis.

"That's what Indonesia does, it's not always easy, but reform is actually one of the most important things, even during the pandemic Indonesia adopted reforms a lot," he said.

Meanwhile, other forms of reform that have also been carried out are in the form of reforms in the field of taxation, reforms in the financial sector, and improvements in cooperation between the central government and local governments.

"This is an ongoing reform. And once again, reforming all infrastructure, human resources, institutions, policies, democratic systems is not always easy. But we are doing it and we are making pretty good progress in this regard," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.