Reuters
Friday, 19 December, 2008

JAKARTA: Indonesia's resource-rich province of Aceh, devastated by conflict and the 2004 tsunami, must reduce crime and improve workers' skills to attract investment and create jobs, an official said on Thursday.

Despite oil, gas, and mineral wealth, Aceh is one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia, the result of three decades of separatist conflict and a tsunami which killed 170,000 people and destroyed infrastructure.

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of the state reconstruction agency whose work in Aceh winds up in April, said the local government needs to address unemployment and crime to attract more domestic and foreign investment.

"Unemployment and crime have a correlation, and the crime rate is rising," he told Reuters in an interview.

"This region ... hasn't been explored in 30 years. Who wants to explore? You go into the woods, you get shot."

The devastating tsunami paved the way for the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists to reach a peace agreement in 2005, bringing an end to decades of violence.

But despite the accord, half the 20,000 former GAM members still do not have jobs, Aceh's governor Irwandi Yusuf said on Thursday.

The Indonesian reconstruction agency, responsible for $7.2 billion in government and international aid, has built 124,000 houses, 1,100 schools, 800 health centres, 2,600 km (1,616 miles) of roads and recovered 101,000 hectares (249,600 acres) of paddy fields and fish ponds, Mangkusubroto said. (Reporting by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Sara Webb) (olivia.rondonuwu@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging: olivia.rondonuwu.reuters.com@reuters.net; Tel: +6221 384 6364)