Good afternoon everybody. My name is Jim Yong Kim, I'm the President of the World Bank Group.
I will discuss series of extremely productive meetings with President Jokowi. Some of the things that I want to highlight:
First of all, the reason we're here is because Indonesia under the leadership of President Jokowi has enormous aspirations for the country and for the people. Indonesia has a growth rate over 5% which is the envy of the vast majority of countries in the world. President Jokowi has said that he wants to grow faster than that, at a rate that will make Indonesia a high income country in the not so distant future. So we're here to think of all the different ways that we can bring the kinds of investment that will be required in infrastructure, yes, but also in human beings in order to increase the capacity of Indonesian children and adults in contributing to this economic growth.
I want to say that our partnership with Indonesia is as close as we have with any country in the world. Part of the reason is because Sri Mulyani and I worked together for four years at the World Bank Group and she knows everything about our organization and what we have to offer. But also because our goal of ending poverty, and boosting shared prosperity, is one that we share completely with the Government of Indonesia.
Now we made some very concrete commitments. The first is in the spirit of the Annual Meetings, which we're very grateful that Indonesia is hosting. We want to make the case that Indonesia is one of the best places in the world for investors to invest. There is a very strong leadership from the top. There is budding industries in so many areas that are now ready for lots more investments especially from investors outside Indonesia. Also the potential growth here is extremely high.
Now, one of the things that we agreed is that I will be coming back here in February to prepare for the investors meeting that we will hold in the context of the Annual Meetings. We will invite institutional investors from many different parts of the world to come to Indonesia to see the opportunities. And the reforms process in Indonesia has been very courageous and has taken the country a long way. We discussed the various kinds of reforms that are still needed but I've been extremely impressed with the level of commitment from President Jokowi and from all the cabinet members and the people that I met to continuing to make those reforms that will improve even further the business environment here in Indonesia.
Indonesia is a very important country for the world. It's not just the region, it's not just Asia, Indonesia is important country for the world. And our aim here is working with the Government of Indonesia, working with the private sector in Indonesia, we’re going to demonstrate just how quickly a developing country can go from low to middle to high income status. We believe that it's possible here, we especially believe that it's possible here under President Jokowi's leadership, and we commit to this partnership in a way that we rarely do with the countries of this size. I'm going to be here three times in this particular year and we hope that the outcomes of the Annual Meetings will not only be a very successful Annual Meeting but an introduction of Indonesia to investors who may not have ever thought that Indonesia was where they should've invested. We're going to make that case, and I think it's gonna be very successful.
Thank you very much. I want to thank the people of Indonesia for their great hospitality, I wanna thank the President Jokowi for his leadership, I also want to thank the people of Indonesia who will be hosting so many of us in Bali on October 2018. Thank you.
Related:
Press release: World Bank Group President to visit Indonesia
