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Indonesian president targets over 5 pct GDP growth this year: minister

Xinhua, August 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has targeted an economic growth rate of over 5 percent this year as government spending is expected to rise sharply in the second half, a minister said here on Thursday.

"We must scale up our spending by more than 70 percent in the second semester," Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said after a meeting with the president at the State Palace.

Infrastructure development will be the focus of budget disbursement, he added.

Slow budget disbursement amid low export and investment had slowed GDP growth in the first and the second quarters of 2015 to 4.71 percent and 4.67 percent respectively, according to Indonesia 's national statistic bureau.

President Widodo, known as Jokowi, previously set a target of more than 7 percent economic growth at the end of his five-year tenure in 2019, by undertaking massive infrastructure construction work. Endi