Southeast Asia Will Become A Center For World Growth, This Is The Reason

JAKARTA - The Southeast Asian region, with Indonesia as its largest country, will become the center of world economic growth in the future. This belief was expressed by Former British Prime Minister (PM) Tony Blair.

"We are willing to share experiences to help the Indonesian Government to increase positive growth in aspects of digitalization, financial inclusion, and energy transition," said Tony Blair when meeting with Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto in Jakarta, Friday (19/4/2024), as quoted from the release of the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy in Jakarta, Saturday.

Launching ANTARA, Saturday, April 20, in discussing the heated geopolitical situation in several regions of the world, Coordinating Minister Airlangga and Tony Blair hoped that the situation would not continue because it could also have negative implications for the global economy.

Then, Coordinating Minister Airlangga conveyed several achievements of Indonesia's development in aspects of financial inclusion and future targets.

"Indonesia's financial inclusion rate continues to increase. In 2023, the level of financial inclusion in Indonesia was recorded at 88.7 percent. Furthermore, Indonesia set a financial inclusion target of 90 percent by 2024," explained Airlangga.

The former British PM also appreciated Indonesia's achievements in financial inclusion and implemented ambitious steps in its targets.

To achieve this target, both of them agreed that digitalization is the most appropriate strategy to encourage the sustainability of Indonesia's equitable economic growth and can be felt by all levels of society.

Several developments on the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) support for the Indonesian government were also conveyed at this meeting.

This supports productive cooperation between the two parties and can make Indonesia a reference model for successful economic growth in several areas.

Furthermore, in discussing the energy transition, Coordinating Minister Airlangga explained several funding cooperation commitments that have been carried out with partner countries, such as the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC), Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), to Masdar's investment plan for solar power plants (PLTS) with a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW) in the capital city of the archipelago (IKN).

Discussions also include discussions about future technological challenges, particularly regarding the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology which has a major impact on all aspects of life, both positive and negative.

Both agreed that the Indonesian government must be ready to face its various impacts through comprehensive, adaptive regulations and be able to anticipate various technological challenges in the future.