The Return of Indonesia: Some Drawbacks and Steps towards Being a Developed Country

INDEF's economist Aviliani highlighted the vital role education plays in bringing this nation to a brighter future. She complained about the fact that there is no harmony found between the education and market design. Educational institutions fail to respond well to current market demands, and it leads to the rising number of unemployment in the domestic area.

Another opinion about Indonesia's human resource quality was given by C. Harinowa, who was a former IMF executive director. He elaborated some facts that some Indonesians are doing pretty well at work, especially at international level. He witnessed a number of Indonesians holding strategic posts of a  profitable multinational company, Unilever. It does show us Indonesians are not really as unqualified as we thought before.

Commenting after Harinowa was a former BNI director named Sutan Remy. Remy articulated his objection to the dominant role of foreign banks in Indonesia nowadays. Privatization is not something to avoid but we definitely must remain to be the man in charge in our own national bankings. He suggested that Bank Indonesia be as procative as possible. What is meant by 'proactive ' is that BI should be actively offering loans to less fortunate micro businesses. Credit portfolio policy is also an issue to reconsider here.

The discussion was wrapped with some fervent exchanges of ideas done by the invited experts, pertaining to steps to take to advance Indonesia. Mari Elka Pangestu, the Indonesian minister of commerce, elaborated that infrastructures and facilities must be provided evenly throughout the country, the human resource quality is to be improved, bureaucracy reform is inevitable to avoid high cost economy, domestic market is potential for creative industry such as movie industry and book writing. The last point she had was that this nation must learn how to appreciate its own domestic products.

The other commentator being asked for his opinion was Komarudin Hidayat. Basically, he emphasized the Indonesians' mindset reform, urgent need of a grand strategy which involves all the nation's elements, deciding the development priority scale and focus (what sector comes first and mainly concentrate on it), and drawback inventorying (deleting some unnecessary laws, blocking policies , unfriendly work ethics).