UNAIR NEWS – Another proudest achievement came from Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR). Two students of the Development Economics study program, Mohammad Ichsan Verianto and Rosa Diwanegara managed to win the best paper in a competition for the student category at East Java Economic (EJAVEC) Forum 2022.
Mohammad Ichsan, the team leader, said he was proud of his team’s achievements. According to him, this competition is a prestigious event that can channel the best ideas for economic progress in Indonesia. So, in addition to achievements, he also gets a boost of enthusiasm for a better life.
“Actually, the results and targets that we have achieved today were not expected; however, by winning the best paper at EJAVEC 2022, we are proud because this event is very prestigious, and we can still reach the final with only two members. The point is there is a spirit that continues to flow from us, and we will continue to move forward,” said Ichsan to the media crew on Tuesday, July 19, 2022.
Ichsan continued, the idea presented in this competition was the concept of convergence in income between regions in all regencies/cities in East Java by considering the effect of inter-regional achievement and using the public investment factor. According to him, it is very useful for restoring the national economy after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We chose the sub-theme of increasing investment competitiveness in East Java after the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
There is a reason that underlies this idea. East Java Province is considered interesting to study, because in 2019, it contributed about 15 percent to the Indonesian economy. However, he continued, in the same year, the Gini coefficient index was 0.370, meaning that there was a high inequality behind economic growth in East Java.
Covid-19, he continued, is predicted to be a factor that exacerbates the level of inequality. So, Ichsan and his team took the initiative to provide advice in the form of policies for optimizing government public investment because, during the Covid-19 period, this sector still had a positive trend.
“Specifically from the results of our research, the policy recommendations that can be suggested are the distribution of new economic growth center formation in the southern region of East Java in order to optimize the potential for investment competitiveness in East Java Province as a whole with the aim of economic spillover to the surrounding area, ” he explained.
The competition was participated by students from various national and international universities. Several foreign students were from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, and Kobe university, Japan representatives participated in the final round held on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, at FEB UNAIR.
This competition, continued Ichsan, is a valuable experience for self-learning in improving the work. He will also continue to look for opportunities to participate in similar competitions organized by the Central Java Regional Representatives of Bank Indonesia and promise to present better works.
“The point in the experience that our team got at the 2022 EJAVEC event was consistency and introspection within the team; moving on and looking for opportunities is a solution to achieve expectations that we have not achieved before,” concluded Ichsan.
Author: Haryansyah Setiawan
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
