Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A chairman of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) Hendrawan Supratikno said the new finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is expected to help bring tax amnesty policy to success.

"Currently the government is facing budget difficulty and hopes that its tax amnesty policy would result in repatriation of funds parked by many Indonesians abroad," Hendrawan said here on Wednesday.

He said Sri Mulyani, who is managing director of the World Bank, has wide relations with the West and strong international access.

He said Sri Mulyani was believed to know much about Indonesian funds parked abroad and has access to the government of foreign countries where the funds have been invested.

Therefore, she is expected to help encourage repatriation as much as possible of the funds which have been parked abroad for many years, he added.

Sri Mulyania, however, indicated that she was more concerned with social gap , which she said is widening in the country.

When asked whether President Joko Widodo has picked Sri Mulyani to cope with the problem, Hendrawan said social gap is a complex problem .

He said he was doubtful even Sri Mulyani could not do much to eliminate social imbalance.

"The gap was already there when Sri Mulyani served as finance minister under the previous government, and the problem remains unsolved," he said.

Sri Mulyani was finance minister under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono before she took the job as managing director of the World Bank.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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