TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo expressed his gratitude for the country's economy, which is relatively good and steady amidst global economic instability.

"Praise to God, in the middle of global economic instability, we can maintain our economic performances in good and balance," said Jokowi, reading the state financial note at the parliament complex, Jakarta on Thursday, August 16, 2018.

Jokowi added that the stable economy can proven from the economic development percentage, which is consistently pretty high from 5 percent in 2014 to 5.17 percent in the first semester of 2018. The inflation rate was also low, declining from 8.36 percent in 2014 to 3.18 percent as of July 2018.

As a result, unemployment rate drops to 5.13 percent from the previous 5.70 percent. Similarly, poverty rate also drop from 11.25 in 2014, to 9.82 percent in 2018.

In addition, the Gini coefficient as an indicator of income inequality amounted to 0.389 from 0.406. Furthermore, Indonesia's Human Development Index (HDI) was expected to rise to 71.5 percent in 2018.

"We keep striving to improve that indicator of human development over the existing dynamics," Jokowi underlined.

The economic challenges faced by Indonesia were fluctuations of commodity price and global economic instability that triggered by trade policies and the increase of interest rate in the United States.

Jokowi explained to deal with the external hindrance, the government quickly maintain the economic stability by encouraging the national economic competitiveness, well managing State Budget, and strengthening the coordination of monetary and fiscal policies.

CAESAR AKBAR