Civil servants should embrace digitization and technological developments: Jokowi

Jakarta, The Gulf Observer: President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has urged civil servants (ASN) to embrace and optimize the digitization process and technological developments for the sake of transforming Indonesia into a developed country.

“ASN should not avoid technology and digitization since both of them are crucial,” Jokowi noted in his opening remarks at the National Working Meeting of the Indonesian Civil Servants Corps (Korpri) in Jakarta on Tuesday.

In his speech, the president emphasized the need for Indonesia to boost its agility in order to keep up with rapid changes, with the end goal of becoming a developed country.

“We need to be more agile to be able to catch up with the rapid and inevitable changes. We can catch up with them by embracing technology and digitization. I believe that all members of Korpri should be agile,” he told civil servants at the national meeting.

President Jokowi then reiterated that the next leaders of Indonesia should be able to lead the country to seize various opportunities ahead in the hopes of helping the country break free from the middle-income trap.

“If we could not make the existing systems faster, better, and more efficient, and seize the opportunities, we would remain trapped as a middle-income country,” he stressed.

The head of state also noted that Indonesia is blessed with abundant valuable natural resources, such as nickel, and will face a demographic bonus in 2030.

“However, this opportunity (demographic bonus) usually comes only once for a country,” he emphasized.

Furthermore, Jokowi told the meeting’s audience that various figures from international organizations had reminded him of the importance of seizing opportunities to escape the middle-income trap by taking creative and innovative measures and avoiding monotonous routines.

Hence, the president called on civil servants to transform and to not stick to a monotonous routine while urging them to innovate and adapt to changes.

“It is necessary to reduce the number of regulations, as we are in need of a higher level of flexibility,” he elaborated.