GOVERNMENT TO ACCELERATE ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Jakarta, Aug 3 (ANTARA) - As the global economy is predicted to enter the recovery phase next year, the government will take that positive momentum to accelerate its activities.

"The global economy in the coming 2010 is predicted to enter the recovery phase, and undoubtedly it will be a positive momentum for the government to accelerate economic activities," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said here on Monday.

The president made the statement in his state-of-the-nation address on the occasion of the presentation of the government introduction on the bill on state revenue and expenditure of the fiscal note at an extraordinary plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR).

But the president said it did not mean that the national economic development in 2010 would be free from challenges posed by global or domestic quarters.

"We must answer all these challenges with concrete and comprehensive actions," the president said.

The comprehensive actions according to the head of state were first, to maintain and consolidate macro-economic stability as a prerequisite for a sustainable economic development.

"We still consider the attention towards maintaining and consolidating macroeconomic stability as essential, due to the still prevailing high risk of the world economic uncertainty and the emergence of obstacle to the funding availability," the president said.

He said the second comprehensive action is to spur the acceleration of economic growth by way of developing more balanced growth resources which rely more on the share of investment and non-oil/gas export.

The third is to create a wider employment opportunity with a view to reducing the unemployment and poverty, and the fourth is to create a better investment climate.

Such an investment climate, according to the president, would be improved by intensifying law enforcement, harmonizing the investment law and ameliorating the bureaucracy that is geared towards the betterment of public service.

While the fifth and sixth are to increase the availability of appropriate and quality infrastructure, and stimulate public-private partnership aimed at financing investment for infrastructure.