ImageVice President Boediono was scheduled to chair a meeting on acceleration of development in Papua and West Papua, at his office here Tuesday.

The meeting was expected to be attended by team members of the Presidential Instruction No.5/2007 on the Acceleration of Development in Papua and West Papua, and the Presidential Instruction No. 7/2008 on the Acceleration of Development in Central Sulawesi.

Boediono earlier received the chairman of the Muhammadiyah University Students` Association Rusli Halim Fadli, and deputy chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sandiaga Uno, who is in charge of small and medium scale businesses and cooperatives.

On a separate occasion, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro held a meeting with prominent figures of Papua, to discuss social, economic, cultural, political, and security issues.

"Papua has a quite high income per capital, but it`s not yet evenly distributed. So, social and economic development in Papua should be empowered more in order to make it more evenly distributed," the minister said.

To accelerate development and improve the welfare of the people of Papua and West Papua, the government had issued Government Instruction Number 5 of 2007 on Acceleration of Development in the Provinces of Papua and West Papua, with the objectives to secure food resilience and economic empowerment of the people, improve education and healthcare services, basic infrastructures, as well as to implement special affirmative action for the younger generation of Papuans.

Source : ANTARA News