The Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) criticizes the 14 economic policy packages that have been released by the Indonesian government between September 2015 and November 2016. While these packages aim at boosting competitiveness, employment opportunities, purchasing power, investment and overall macroeconomic growth, results have been disappointing so far. Ahmad Heri Firdaus, economist at Indef, says the packages are too "general" and thus fail to focus on the specific environment in a specific sector (and-related sub-sectors).

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Indonesia's domestic motorcycle sales rose 13.8 percent year-on-year (y/y) to 473,879 units in January 2017, from 416,263 units in the same month one year earlier. This growth is attributed to Indonesians' improving purchasing power supported by recovering commodity prices, particularly coal and crude palm oil (CPO). Gunadi Sindhuwinata, General Chairman of the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association (AISI), is optimistic that Indonesia's motorcycle sales will rebound in 2017 - after two years of slowdown - on the back of accelerating economic growth and rising commodity prices.

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Andi Amran Sulaiman, Indonesia's Agriculture Minister, says Indonesia is ready to become a rice exporter after Indonesia managed to become self-sufficient in rice in 2016. Last year Indonesia produced a total of 79.17 million of unmilled tons of rice, significantly above the government target that was set at 72 million tons. Although Indonesia is the world's third-largest rice producer the country usually needs to import rice from Vietnam or Thailand to maintain stable prices and meet huge rice demand at home. Rice is the staple food of basically all Indonesian people.

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The central bank of Indonesia (Bank Indonesia) expects Indonesia's current account deficit (CAD) to widen to 2.4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), or about USD $23 billion, in 2017. Therefore, Bank Indonesia Governor Agus Martowardojo said the CAD remains one of the bigger challenges for Indonesia in the foreseeable future. In 2016 the nation's CAD had in fact eased to 1.8 percent of GDP (or USD $17 billion) on the back of a big improvement in the last quarter of 2016.

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