TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, recounted his meeting with Standard & Poor’s (S&P) President, John Berisford, at Washington back on April. According to Luhut, the boss of an international ratings agency asked about the recent Jakarta Gubernatorial Election.
“Has the election in Jakarta radicalized Indonesia? This topic has attracted international attention. John is one of the people that directly asked us during our meeting in Washington last month. My answer was ‘No it didn’t’,” Luhut said today.
Luhut emphasized the importance of an equally distributed economic growth. “It important considering that radicalism is a direct effect of poverty and injustice,” Luhut said.
Luhut gave an example of Indonesia’s attempt to equally distribute wealth by distributing 74,000 village funds across the nation. He claims that discrepancy has been reduced through this program. “But the government needs funds to keep flowing in order to keep on realizing the program,” says Luhut.
One of the ways to obtain the funds is through investments. Which highlights the importance of the Indonesia’s investment grade status from S&P.
“One of it is to lower the cost of fund. The problem is that Indonesia’s rating was at BB+ last month, which is a notch under the investment grade standard,” Luhut explained.
Luhut then said to John, “You’re actually helping to preserve radicalism In Indonesia by not granting Indonesia the investment grade.” Upon hearing Luhut’s statement, John replied by agreeing to evaluate the report.
Last week, Indonesia finally received the investment grade status from S&P. Luhut further claims that Indonesia’s foreign exchange reserves reached US$124 billion, which is the highest in Indonesia’s history.
ANGELINA ANJAR SAWITRI
