Indonesia aims to scale up financing on infrastructure

  Indonesian public work ministry rose the amount of budget funds for infrastructure next year, a minister said here on Monday. Public Work Minister Djoko Kirmanto said that his ministry push up the amount of the fund to 121 trillion rupiah (about 10.317 billion U.S. dollar), as against 84.18 trillion rupiah (about 7. 178 billion U.S. dollar) approved for this year. The minister said that most of the funds would be set aside for constructing and maintaining roads and bridges, followed by water infrastructures, in the vast archipelago country. "About 50 percent of the funds (proposed for) 2015 will be allocated to build and maintaining roads, bridges...30 percent for water facilities," he said at the Public Work Ministry. The largest economy in Southeast Asia has scrambled to ramp up infrastructure facility to spur economic growth to create more jobs. One of the main efforts recently is on how to smooth the supply of foods in the country, home to more than 238 million people with a growing middle class, making consumption representing more than 50 percent of the economy. After being hit by wide spread flooding and landslide, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered to set road repairing as one of the main priority of the public ministry.