Indonesia Still Prioritizing Infrastructure Development

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government intends to improve connectivity between regions to achieve an economic growth of 5,4 percent. Hence, infrastructure development has been established as one of the priority targets of 2018.

Establishment of infrastructure development as one of the 2018 priorities can be seen from the increase in infrastructure spending in the State Budget Plan (RAPBN) 2018 which reached 409 trillion. As reported on katadata.com (22/8), the amount increased 5,6 percent compared to the 2017 APBNP of 387.3 trillion.

This includes economic infrastructure spending of Rp 395,1 trillion, social infrastructure Rp 8 trillion, and infrastructure support Rp 4,9 trillion.

The government in the transportation sector will build a new highway along 865 km, 6 airports, 15 ports, and rail lines along 639 km. The construction of the Palapa Ring optical fiber backbone network in 57 districts will also be continued.

The government will also build a new irrigation network covering an area of 54,000 ha and 47 units of dams. Then from the housing sector, the government will provide 6,238 units of flats and 180,000 units of self-help houses. Next year, the government targets 95,12 percent of Indonesia's population could enjoy electricity or increase from the realization of 2017 of 92,8 percent.