Indonesian government pledges to reduce unemployment ,

The Indonesian government has pledged to reduce the unemployment rate, which is expected to swell by 2.5 million this year alone as a result of a rapidly increasing population and a spate of disasters around the country.

Coordinating Minister for Economy Boediono promised on Friday to do everything in his power to reduce the unemployment rate. "We will build on what we have now, such as economic growth and stability. This will help reduce the cost of living for our people, especially the poor," the chief of the government's economic ministers group said.

According to government plan, the efforts to increase employment would include the strengthening of the National People's Empowerment Program (PNPM), and the expansion of opportunities for Indonesian migrants to work overseas.

Earlier, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said there was a major possibility that unemployment, currently, standing at 10.9 million people, could rise by another 2.5 million this year. Most of the new job seekers would be school and college leavers, although recent disasters would also play a significant role.

Erman said that some 20,000 people had been left unemployed as a result of the mudflow disaster in East Java, 600 by the recent earthquake in East Nusa Tenggara, 15,000 by the West Sumatra earthquake, 60,000 by the Yogyakarta earthquake, and about 223,007 by the floods that hit Jakarta last month.

The government was trying to reduce unemployment through three strategic approaches, namely accelerating economic and investment growth, expanding fields of employment and alleviating poverty, he said.

The national program being implemented was designed to empower 12 million poor people in 33 provinces, 2,000 sub districts and 23, 500 villages.

The government would focus its attention on development efforts that were "pro-growth", "pro-jobs" and "pro-poor" by promoting export- and investment-based growth, activating the real sector, revitalizing the agricultural, forestry, marine and rural economic sectors, he said.

Erman also said that the PNPM would be one of the government's principal tools in its efforts to increase employment.

The PNPM, which was first introduced in August last year, is a medium-term program that aims to reduce poverty by 8.2 percent and unemployment by 5.1 percent by 2009 through annual increases in government spending on various sub-programs designed to strengthen the social economy.

In 2006, the government allocated 42 trillion rupiah (about 4.5 billion U.S. dollars) for the PNPM's predecessor program, representing an increase of 48 percent compared to the 23 trillion rupiah allocated in 2005. In this year's budget, the PNPM was allocated 51 trillion rupiah (about 5.4 billion U.S. dollars).

The PNPM operates under five governing principals: maximizing public participation; transparency and openness, meaning that people can choose from available programs, and compete for funding; decentralization; and simplicity in implementation.

The main programs of the PNPM are divided into two major categories, the subdistrict development program (PPK) and the urban poverty reduction program (P2KP), with both programs drawing on similar schemes that have proved successful in China and other countries, the Jakarta Post daily reported.

According to official sources, In 2006, the scope of the two programs reached 39,282 villages out of a total of 69,929 in the country, and 2,600 subdistricts, out of a total of 5,623.

Regarding migrant workers, the government will work to open up 15 new countries to Indonesian workers and seek better employment opportunities for migrants, such as envisaged under the Indonesia- Japan economic partnership agreement (EPA), which is due to be signed soon.

Last year, about 680,000 Indonesians were registered as working overseas, and the number is expected to grow to 800,000 this year.

Source: Xinhua