Erick Thohir: The Indonesian Middle Class Can Follow South Korea

Capture the screen of BUMN Minister Erick Thohir. (Mery Handayani / VOI)

JAKARTA - The government is optimistic that Indonesia's economy will rise after the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, Indonesia is considered to be able to recover faster than other countries because it has a fairly large market share, in this case the middle class or middle class.

Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir said the number of Indonesia's middle class will continue to grow. He claims, the potential for growth will even surpass developed countries such as South Korea (South Korea).

Furthermore, Erick said, demographically the number of the middle income class continues to grow from 7 percent to 20 percent of the total population and a total of 52 million people.

"If we describe, out of 237 million there are 52 million of middle income. Compared to other countries, the population of South Korea is only 55 million, then South Africa reaches 56 million and even Spain 46 million," he said, in an event held by HSBC virtually, Wednesday , 16 September.

Erick said that the increase in the number of the middle class reflects an increase in the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This means that the more the middle class, the more prosperous the country will be.

"Our total population is 273 million and if we can grow by a third it will be approximately 90 million. That means we have a market that has great potential, even bigger than several countries which now continue to be big countries," he said.

According to Erick, this data is in line with the decreasing poverty and inequality rates. Erick is optimistic that Indonesia has strong capital to become a developed country.

Furthermore, Erick said, Indonesia is a country that is fortunate to have great potential, both abundant natural and human resources.

"We can work on agricultural plantations and others. We are under the equator where this large archipelago country becomes a positive thing and becomes a strong and developing country," he said.

However, Erick did not deny that Indonesia still has shortcomings that must be fixed. One of them is related to logistics and the investment climate.

"Therefore, the government continues to build infrastructure for the acceleration of digitalization, even in times of crisis like this, the budget for this will continue to be carried out next year. It is even a priority," he said.