Land certification program becoming new engine of local economies: Minister

A land certification program that forms a key part of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo's ambitious agrarian reforms has begun to drive the growth of local economies, a minister said on Friday..

Agrarian and Spatial Minister Sofyan Djalil said that people who had their land certified under the program, which started in 2016, used the certificates as guarantees to get loans from banks to develop their own businesses, especially in Central Java.

Sofyan was in the province together with Jokowi to hand over about 5,000 land certificates in Cilacap and Banyumas regencies as part of a program that seeks to certify local ownership of 126 million hectares of land across the country.

The minister said that between January and June this year banks in Central Java had disbursed a total of Rp 32.5 trillion in loans using newly issued land certificates as guarantees.

"This is what it's like in Central Java because this province has a sense of entrepreneurship," Sofyan said.

This year Jokowi's administration is planning to issue a total of 5 million land certificates to people nationwide. About 500,000 are to be distributed in Central Java.

In 2018, the government aims to issue a total of 7 million certificates, while the plan for 2019 is 9 million.

Source:
courtesy of THE JAKARTA POST

by Haeril Halim

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