Indonesia claims progress in economic development plan

Indonesia claimed significant progress in its plan aimed at accelerating economy development in the regions with total spending of 838.7 trillion rupiah (about 72. 7 billion U.S. dollars) as of the first quarter this year, covering a total of 204 infrastructure projects and 174 projects in the real sector. "The total spending was allocated for infrastructure projects, amounting at 397.7 trillion (about 34.5 billion U.S. dollars) and projects in real sector at 441 trillion rupiah (about 38.2 billion U.S. dollars)," Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Radjasa told a press conference held in his office on Thursday. Citing to the spending figure as of the first quarter this year, Hatta claimed that significant progress was seen in the implementation of the program officially called Master Plan of Indonesia Economic Development Acceleration and Expansion (MP3EI) kicked off in 2011. The program was initially designed to run until 2025, requiring a total financing of 4,000 trillion rupiah (about 347 billion U.S. dollars). The MP3EI was intended to boost growths in each of the nation's six economy corridors by providing sufficient infrastructure to facilitate development. According to Hatta, the government allocated some 131.6 trillion rupiah (about 11.4 billion U.S. dollars) to partly finance the projects. The remaining funds were provided by state- owned firms at 153.2 trillion rupiah (about 13.2 billion U.S. dollars) and private sector 53.8 trillion rupiah (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars). Joint venture between state-own firms and private sector also contributed some 89 trillion rupiah (about 7.7 billion U.S. dollars) to the program. Hatta added that all of those projects have evenly been carried out in all of the six corridors, aimed at spreading equal distribution of industry across the nation's territory. Those six economy corridors were consisted of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali-Nusa Tenggara and Papua-Maluku.