The political turmoil that has been plaguing Thailand since 2006 can become an advantage for Indonesia if the country manages to attract investors that were previously engaged in business or exploring business activities in Thailand. Although Indonesian politics are characterized by a certain level of uncertainty as well, particularly ahead of the upcoming July presidential election, the political situation is much more under control in Indonesia. Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are Indonesia's greatest economic rivals in Southeast Asia.

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Indonesian vice president Boediono stated at the opening of the two-day Green Infrastructure Summit in Jakarta (29/04) that Indonesia's heavily subsidized energy prices might be the key reason why the country has failed to make its development policy more environment friendly. According to Boediono, a national consensus - involving the central and regional governments, businesses, lawmakers and other stakeholders - is needed to systematically curb Indonesia's large energy subsidies.

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Indonesia's central bank (Bank Indonesia) has sent a clear signal to those market participants that hope to see a lower benchmark interest rate (BI rate) in Southeast Asia's largest economy in the near future. Governor of Bank Indonesia Agus Martowardojo stated that there will be no lower BI rate as long as there is looming global uncertainty. On the contrary, the possibility of another BI rate hike is still there. In 2013, Bank Indonesia raised its BI rate on five occassions in order to combat inflation and curb the country's wide current account deficit.

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One of the key strategies to improve the economic fundamentals of Indonesia is to restructure and strengthen the country’s exports. This restructuring involves the transformation of Indonesian exports from being dominated by (raw) commodities to manufactured exports by developing downstream industries in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, including import substitution industrialization in order to curb the country’s demand for imported products amid Indonesians’ rising purchasing power.

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Chairman of Indonesia's Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Suryo Bambang Sulisto stated that the most crucial problem which Indonesia is facing currently as well as in the foreseeable future is unemployment. Sulisto said that while the population of Indonesia has grown continuously in the past decade, unaffected by family planning programs, employment opportunities have not grown accordingly. In fact, they have declined. At end-2013, Indonesia's unemployment rate stood at 6.3 percent (of the total labor force).

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