As an individual, you can be active, not idle, but engaged in the wrong activities that, even with all your engagement, will not lead to any sort of economic progress.
Doing nothing can be better than doing the wrong thing. This is another way to interpret the sentence.
I can stay resting while I wait for something better rather than doing the wrong thing because I do not want to be said to be idle. Idleness can lead to dangerous engagement in activities that can hinder the economic prosperity of a country. Idle people can be deceived to fight against their country, join a riot, a protest, destroy public properties economic costs runs into billions.
A cause of idleness is lack of employment. If the government don't want the people to be idle, they should create jobs for the unemployed to become employed. It is the government that can save itself. Create job and idleness will go away and the country will prosper economically.