During EKONID鈥檚 49th Annual Member鈥檚 Meeting, held on June 18, 2019, at the Ayana Midplaza Jakarta, guest speaker Mr. Kevin Raymond Evans, the Country Director of Australia Indonesia Center (AIC), says that Jokowi鈥檚 re-election will ensure that human resources development will remain in focus.
Human resource development has been a core agenda of the Joko Widodo administration. His re-election 鈥� and its affirmation by a recent constitional court ruling following its rejection of a legal challenge from contender Prabowo Subianto 鈥� ensures that the topic will continue to remain in focus for the Indonesian government, says Mr. Kevin Raymond Evans, the Country Director of Australia Indonesia Center (AIC).
Mr. Evans is the guest speaker of EKONID鈥檚 Annual Member鈥檚 Meeting, which was held on June 18, 2019. In this exclusive seminar, Mr. Evans gave a brief but comprehensive overview on Indonesia鈥檚 economic trajectory based on the country鈥檚 domestic politics.
As it is widely known, Indonesia鈥檚 general election resulted in the re-election of incumbent Jokowi as the President of Indonesia for his second and final term. The general election was also held to elect the parties that would hold parliament seats. Mr. Evans noted several interesting trends in this regard, namely that two-thirds of voters did not vote for Jokowi鈥檚 party platform, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (or PDI-P), nor did they vote for the opposition party, Gerindra within the election鈥檚 10-party contest. The result is a relatively significant increase in the number of seats going towards the National Democrat (Nasdem) party, as well as the ousting of Hanura, which did not receive enough votes to pass the parliamentary threshold. Additionally, there could be an increase in the size of both the upper and lower houses 鈥� respectively known as the DPR and the DPD 鈥� in which women senators did very well among the voters.
The resulting legislative map, Mr.Evans predicts, will allow the President to continue with his core agenda of developing Indonesia鈥檚 human resources, as well as his trademark focus of pursuing better physical infrastructure across the board. There are a number of questions that are still worth noting, including the perception of corruption in Indonesia, which, according to data from Transparency International, has continued to improve over the years. Another question is the perceived setback in regards to civil liberties, as illustrated by a rise in the number of cases related to religious blasphemy and libel.
Nevertheless, Mr. Evans observed that, while Indonesia鈥檚 has rejected the 鈥渘ational tough guy leader鈥� trend that has been seen around the globe, the political climate continues to hold strong for economic nationalism with the public still being fearful towards foreign 鈥渋ntervention鈥�. In this regard, Mr. Evans mentioned a 2016 survey done by the AIC regarding the attitude held by Australians and Indonesians on their attitude regarding global trade. In this survey, he said most Australians knew what they exported but have little knowledge of what they imported, while most Indonesians had the complete opposite profile: having high knowledge of what the country imported but knowing very little about what the country exported.
鈥淪o the fear of exports, the fear of global trade, is quite understandable, when your view is you don鈥檛 think you export anything and all you can think of is you鈥檙e importing, therefore you鈥檙e being ripped off,鈥� he said.
To counter the perception, Mr. Evans said the business community could be more aggressive in informing the general public that Indonesia was in fact a major player in global trading, being the second largest producer of palm oil as well as being among the largest producer of raw minerals, oil and textiles. That, combined with better cooperation with the government on human resource development should further propel Indonesia鈥檚 economy higher.
鈥淭he focus down the line five years on infrastructure was also critically important, but the focus on human resource development will meet, and defeat, the upcoming threat to the economy, which is simply the mismatch between the skills needed and the skills available. That will be a major bottleneck to Indonesia鈥檚 further progress,鈥� he said.