Build Economic Cooperation At Global Level, Airlangga: Indonesia Becomes Friends Of All Countries

Pic : Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

JAKARTA - Supported by the resilience of the national economy which is able to grow stable in the range of 5 percent and strengthened by the ability to maintain inflation levels within the target range, Indonesia is increasingly optimistic in driving the pace of national economic transformation towards developed countries by 2045.

In addition, Indonesia is estimated to have around 320 million inhabitants with a per capita income of around US$26,000, so that the Indonesian economy is estimated to reach around US$9 trillion.

To realize this vision, the Government continues to encourage the renewal and improvement of the performance of various economic growth machines, especially in the digitalization era. In 2018, the Government has encouraged the improvement of the ability of the national industry to be competitive in the global realm by launching the Roadmap Making Indonesia 4.0.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said that in the future, digitization of various industries will continue to be accelerated so that investment in Indonesia will be more capital-intensive and require new skills from the community.

"Then we have a second engine that is our current discussion, namely regarding the digital economy. Currently, our digital economy is around USD 80 billion and we hope that by 2025 it can increase to USD 125 billion, and by 2030 we hope it will be around USD400 billion," he said in his statement, quoted on Sunday, July 7.

The government is also making various efforts to prepare competitive Human Resources. Through the Pre-Employment Program, the Government provides policies that are government to people aimed at re-skilling, up-skilling, and empowering the community through various kinds of training in accordance with the needs of the labor market.

Since the beginning of its implementation, the Pre-Employment Program has so far been able to reach up to 18 million beneficiaries.

As an archipelagic country, Indonesia has its own challenges to encourage equal distribution of connectivity and accelerate the development of adequate digital infrastructure.

Meanwhile, a number of efforts were taken, including through the construction of the Palapa Ring fiber optic network, the use of the Satria Multifunction Satellite for underdeveloped, frontier, and outermost areas, to the latest, namely adopting Low Earth Orbit Satellite technology.

Airlangga said that Indonesia has become the country with the largest number of unicorns and decacorns among other countries. One of these is driven by the Government's efforts to integrate with ASEAN countries so that it can be easier to develop and expand market reach.

Airlangga said that in Indonesia's initiative in the form of a Digital Economic Agreement Framework (DEFA), it has opened a new chapter in the integration of the regional digital economy and is expected to attract investment and innovation, increase productivity, create jobs and empower the MSME sector.

According to Airlangga, with the use of DEFA, the ASEAN digital economy in 2030, which was originally worth USD 1 trillion, is estimated to increase to USD 2 trillion.

Indonesia and other ASEAN countries have also integrated payments with the Local Currency Settlement policy through the use of QRIS, making it easier to encourage digitalization in the economic sector.

Furthermore, Airlangga said that in the midst of these various digitalization efforts, data security is also one of the important challenges and aspects that need to be accelerated.

"Indonesia needs to be ubiquitous. So we are working with Europe for EU-CEPA, so that we can become European partners. We in ASEAN are partnering with China, with ASEC, RCEP. We are also with India and the US in the Indo-Pacific which was signed two weeks ago. And of course the last thing we do, we want to be part of 37 OECD countries. This will be a trip for three years. So in the economic sector, we are friends of everyone, "said Airlangga.