The Finance Minister on Wednesday said that number of civil servants (PNS) is too high, burdening the state budget because of the outlays on salaries, pensions and insurance.

"Regarding civil servants, we have to be cautious because the number is already high enough and we are hoping there is a program to reform bureaucracy to increase our civil servants' productivity," Agus Martowardojo told SCTV.

He said a lot of routine budget allocations in provinces were spent on PNS salaries even though the budget was limited – consequently, leaving not enough budget behind for infrastructure projects.

"There is a region in which 70 percent of its budget is used to pay for civil servants' salaries," he said.

"If we are not careful, the cost of civil servants, which is not only related to salaries, will also affect other institutions such as Taspen [state pension insurance company] and Askes [state health insurance company] because of a poorly planned increase in the number of civil servants," he said.

He also advised the ministry to improve the selection processes for civil officers. "We unconsciously keep increasing the number of civil officers with a very simple process, while it has to be conducted through a refined process."