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First year as Indonesian President ‘very challenging’: Joko Widodo

BOGOR (West Java) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his first year in office has been “very challenging”, especially in managing the country’s economy and the haze.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview, Channel NewsAsia​'s Conversation With talks to Indonesian President Joko Widodo​ about transforming the Indonesian economy, the haze, and how he still believes he has the trust of the Indonesian people one year on. Photo: Channel NewsAsia

In an exclusive one-on-one interview, Channel NewsAsia​'s Conversation With talks to Indonesian President Joko Widodo​ about transforming the Indonesian economy, the haze, and how he still believes he has the trust of the Indonesian people one year on. Photo: Channel NewsAsia

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BOGOR (West Java) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his first year in office has been “very challenging”, especially in managing the country’s economy and the haze.

He gave this assessment in a wide-ranging interview with Channel NewsAsia on Saturday (Oct 17) at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, just outside Jakarta.

President Widodo said that early prevention could have resulted in a different outcome to the forest fires and haze crisis, and said he will push regional governments to do more.

“We will call all of them to overcome this,” he said. “There should have been preventive measures earlier on. If the prevention had been done, and all had been responsible from top to the bottom, I think the outcome would have been different.”

He reiterated that solving the annual regional haze problem from forest burning would take time, as the necessary infrastructure to prevent the fires are still being built. “The land that is on fire is not one or two hectares, but 1.7 million hectares,” he said. “It’s such a huge area and needs time.”

Last month, President Widodo said that results from efforts to end the huge annual forest fires will take three years to be seen. Other Southeast Asian nations and environmental groups have criticised President Widodo for failing to stop the regional haze, which has blanketed Southeast Asia in the past two months.

Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest tropical forests and is a major palm oil and pulp and paper producer. However, unregulated land clearing has long been a problem in the country. According to a report by the Corruption Eradication Commission - Indonesia’s main anti-graft agency - the country lost 1.5 million hectares of tree cover last year, up from 1.1 million hectares in 2013.

‘WE CAN STILL MANAGE’ ECONOMY

President Widodo swept into power a year ago as the “People’s President”, promising economic growth and improving Indonesia’s poor infrastructure. But the economy is stumbling, with growth in the second quarter recorded at only 4.67 per cent - the slowest in six years.

President Widodo attributed Indonesia’s slow economic growth to the “external situation which is beyond our control”. However, he remained optimistic about the country’s economic outlook.

“What is most important is in the country we can still manage,” said Mr Widodo. “We have started with infrastructure. We hope to still have growth of more than seven per cent after three years or four years. We have those targets.”

When asked if Indonesians would be patient with his plans to transform the nation, President Widodo, whose popularity fell to a low of 46 per cent in September, said: “What is more important is that the people’s trust is still high, and that is what I should maintain and nurture, so that I can use the people’s trust to develop good programmes for the people and the country.”

MULTI-PRONGED APPROACH

During the interview, the president also addressed religious extremism that has been sprouting in Indonesia. The country is the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world. More than 500 Indonesians are believed to have joined the terrorist organisation the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which controls vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

In response to the organisation’s influence in his country, President Widodo highlighted the need to take a multi-pronged approach to combat the impact of the terrorist organisation the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

“I have always said to the other countries, this question cannot be resolved by only taking the security approach,” said Mr Widodo.

He emphasised that the strategy also involves taking a religious and cultural approach.

“We also hope to show that Indonesia can manage this problem, tackle this problem, because we also have a long experience overcoming terrorism.”

Watch the full interview on Channel NewsAsia’s Conversation With today (Oct 19) at 8pm. CHANNEL NEWSASIA

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