PRESIDENT: INDONESIA MUST BECOME SUCCESSFUL COUNTRY

Palembang, Feb 9 (ANTARA) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia must be able to overcome various challenges after it had successfully overcome a number of crises in the past decade.

In his lecture on "Why Indonesia Must Be Successful" to students of the Indonesia School of Journalism given at the National Press Day here on Tuesday the head of state said "we have passed the past tests and therefore we must also be able to overcome the tests to be met in the future to make Indonesia more advanced in the 21st century."
He said Indonesia had passed two crises in the last decade namely the financial crisis in 1998 that led to a political reform in the country and the global crisis in 2008 that had triggered food, energy and climate crisis.

President Yudhoyono said the crises had made the country's economy to drop, triggered conflicts and disintegrative efforts. Some have even predicted that Indonesia would break up and vanish, he said. However Indonesia had been able to pass the difficult times, he said.

"We have survived as a nation and made positive changes. There has been a reawakening and Indonesia's role in the international forum is increasing," he said.

President Yudhoyono said Indonesia must be able to pass the next challenges after having been able to overcome the hardships so far, namely realizing economic improvement, people's welfare and strengthening democracy and justice.

He said it was difficult to predict if crisis would happen again in the future or not but it was sure there would be challenges that Indonesia had to meet such as polarization in the world's powers, clashes of civilizations, competition for food, energy resources and water, epidemic and climate change.

In view of that he said the Indonesian people must muster its potentials to achieve inclusive development goals and meet the challenges.

"Indonesia will be able to achieve them all because we have a lot of capital, experience and momentum," he said.

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