Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said the government already has a plan to realize the vision of a Golden Indonesia 2045. According to him, Indonesia’s vision of becoming a developed country will be realized through implementing economic transformation and optimizing potential.
“Structural reform is the key to the success of sustainable economic transformation,” said Airlangga in a written statement, quoted Thursday, (2/11/2023).
Airlangga said Indonesia was at a crucial moment to prepare various prerequisites to achieve this target. The years 2023 and 2024 are considered to be the first leap to strengthen the foundations of the economic transformation planned for 2025.
He said that through the Draft National Long Term Development Plan (RPJPN) 2025-2045, which is currently being drafted, the Government has drawn up a draft of the stages of economic transformation. Each of these stages has a target for achieving economic growth, a target for the role of the manufacturing industry in Gross Domestic Product, and a target for the proportion of the middle class.
Apart from economic transformation strategies, policies are also directed at optimizing various potentials, one of which is Human Resources. The human resource factor, he said, is very important to increase the competitiveness and quality of Indonesian people. This increase can be done by increasing labor productivity through education and labor reforms.
Improvements in regulations and procedures for ease of doing business, he said, are also a manifestation of the Government’s seriousness in carrying out structural reforms. “Indonesia has various capital to achieve the vision of a Golden Indonesia 2045, namely human resources approaching the peak of the demographic bonus which we can only get in the next 13 years and will only happen once in a nation’s civilization,” said Airlangga.
He said efforts related to the use of natural resources were carried out through export diversification and downstream efforts. He said these two efforts were the first steps towards downstreaming.
Downstreaming has started by building an ecosystem for electric vehicle batteries or electric vehicles and downstream minerals. He said that downstreaming which is synergized with the strategy to achieve a sustainable economy is also a policy design that will be implemented.
In the international sphere, Airlangga said that Indonesia was trying to apply to become a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Government’s efforts will also go hand in hand with efforts to increase Indonesia’s competitiveness as part of its transformation into a developed country, on par with other OECD members.
He said that with the current condition of economic fundamentals being quite solid, the government is optimistic that it can realize the vision of a Golden Indonesia 2045.
Airlangga’s optimism is different from the results of a study conducted by the Economic & Society Research Institute (LPEM) Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia. LPEM FEB UI projects that Indonesia has the potential to fail to become a developed country by 2045. This is contained in the White Paper entitled From LPEM for Indonesia: Economy and Society Agenda 2024-2029.
In the White Paper, Indonesia is said to have not met the sufficient and necessary requirements to become a high-income country. Like China, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and Brazil, when they first entered the group of high-income countries.
In fact, Indonesia’s economic growth is said to be stagnant and has never been much above the 5% level, credit growth per year has never reached 15%, the tax to GDP ratio has never exceeded 11% and has even only been 9.9% in the last decade, until the industry’s contribution to GDP continues to decline to now at the level of 18% and extreme poverty persists at the level of 1.7%.
The Dean of FEB UI, Teguh Dartanto, one of the authors of the white paper, said that rather than focusing on the obsession of becoming a high-income country, the current or future government would be better off focusing on alleviating poverty, reducing inequality and building a strong and innovative middle class.
“I think these are very critical notes, whether the dream is realistic or not, or whether we need to rethink Golden Indonesia 2045 or Golden Indonesia 2045,” said Teguh when giving a keynote speech at the launch of the White Paper, quoted on Sunday (30/ 10/2023).
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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