The long-term prospects for sustainable and inclusive growth in Indonesia will depend, above all, on the quality of domestic economic policy-making in a complex and vibrant democratic setting. Constant structural adjustment will be needed to promote productivity and an equitable distribution of income.

Policy-making in Indonesia will also need to take account of a rapidly changing international environment. Indonesia can take advantage of many new international opportunities to improve Indonesia’s economic prospects. These include the emergence of new g economic giants in Asia and the opportunity to become more deeply engaged in international production networks.

Looking ahead, Indonesia needs to go beyond anticipating and responding to external events. Indonesia is already among the world’s significant economies. It is the largest economy of ASEAN and member of the G20 steering group for the global economy. A significant part of Indonesia’s international interests is to use its growing influence to help shape the international system for managing the global economy.

It will be hard to sustain an international environment that can sustain the recent trend of rapidly improving productivity and prosperity. Indonesia will need to cooperate effectively with others to deal with serious problems, including climate change, which need global solutions. Regional cooperation and regional economic integration will need to take growing account of Indonesia’s global interests.

An issues paper, being prepared for the Policy Analysis Team of BAPPENAS aims to set out these points in some detail. I hope to receive some helpful feedback from the presentation to the Indonesia Project.