REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- President Joko Widodo has urged young entrepreneurs in the country to take advantage of the available opportunities in the midst of current competition.

"There will be a lot of challenges we will have to face in the future, and we will have to work hard to deal with them," he said while receiving members of the board of the Indonesia Young Businessmen Association (HIPMI) at the state palace here on Monday.

The president pointed out that two of the current challenges they were facing included pressure from the U. S. dollar on the rupiah and the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of this year.

With regard to the depreciation of the rupiah, Jokowi, as the president is also known, stated that he believed if all parties reached a consensus, the problem could be overcome.

"We must all maintain a common stance to curb the pressure from the greenback and strengthen the rupiah. The stance should be a shared conviction that the problem can be overcome," he emphasized.

The president further noted, "Our fiscal room is good; oil subsidy has been reallocated to benefit farmers and fishermen, although it has yet to be used; and investors' confidence (in Indonesia) is also good and positive."

Regarding the ASEAN free market, President Jokowi said that all parties must be confident that they can compete against other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

He added that all countries have worries with regard to the implementation of the AEC.

"I have met with all the heads of states of the members of ASEAN. They said they were also afraid of us. So we should not get carried away and be afraid. We must have the courage to expand there," he remarked.

Moreover, President Jokowi said there were still a lot of opportunities we could grab, including ones involving online businesses.

"There are a great number of opportunities for the future. I see a lot of them that we can grab," he affirmed.

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