Former Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia, Prof. Dr. Boediono, said the nation had to perform an interference towards the market to prevent economic stagnancy and reach economic equity. “An effective and selective interference has to be performed to reach the increase in state revenue and prosperity,” said Boediono during Mubyarto Policy Forum event which was held at Kertanegara Room, Faculty of Economics and Business UGM on Wednesday (10/5).
According to Boediono, a decent economic development model has to be long-term whilst policies being unchanged within five years. However, economic development is not only stipulated by the growth level but also has to be followed by the enhancement of quality of human resources. “The economic policy package has to be long-term and sustainable,” said Boediono.
Political stability condition, according to Boediono, also plays a significant role in realizing the economic development policy plan to be well implemented and always stand on the society side. “The nation’s interference is performed for the public interest,” he added.
About the quality of human resources, Boediono emphasized the government needs to prepare high quality and skilled human resources. This needs to be done so our human resources will be more skilled in the next 20 years. “We do not want our human resources to have low quality and work as unskilled labor while the people who enjoy the prosperity are those who sell our natural resources to the other countries,” he explained.
The skilled human resources are expected to manage natural resources better than the unskilled ones, and they can even open many job opportunities. “If we do not prepare a complementation of human resources, we will import them from overseas in the future,” he added.
Professor of the Faculty, Prof. Gunawan Sumodiningrat, said each economic growth is not fully enjoyed by the society due to the capability level of each human resource. Therefore, the government interference through imposing higher tax for the rich people is suitable to be implemented in order to reach the economic development equity. “The rich people have to pay a higher tax, thus the equity can be reached by performing interference by the nation.”