VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Illustration - The process of building a flat. ANTARA/HO-Directorate General of Housing, The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing - 

The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) has urged contractors involved in the construction process for the One Million Houses Program to use domestic products.

"We will encourage the use of domestic products in the One Million Houses Program," Director General of Housing at the ministry Iwan Suprijanto noted in a press release here on Friday.

Apart from boosting the competitiveness of domestic industries, using domestically-made building material products can also help boost the economy.

Suprijanto noted that his ministry will start using domestic products and specially in the housing construction specifications of the Directorate General of Housing of the ministry.

Several residential development projects that will be optimized include the construction of special houses and flats.

"I hope that in future, we would have standardization of building materials, especially of domestic products. The push to use domestic products, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, is part of the efforts to restore the national economy," he stressed.

Moreover, the housing or property sector was able to drive 174 other sectors related to building materials and this also had a positive impact on employment.

The ministry noted that under the One Million Houses Program, some 1,105,707 housing units were built across Indonesia in 2021.

Minister Basuki Hadimuljono attributes this achievement to the support of various stakeholders in the housing sector, for instance, from housing developers, banks, the private sector, and communities throughout Indonesia//ANT