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Entering the second quarter of 2018 chief executive officers (CEOs) have become less optimistic about the Indonesian economy and politics. This should be no surprise considering there have emerged significant concerns about a looming global trade war (with the USA and China as main actors), while further monetary tightening in the USA has been putting pressure on the Indonesian rupiah.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is popular not only in Indonesia but also abroad. Over the weekend she accepted the Best Minister in the World Award at the World Government Summit in Dubai. It is not her first award. Earlier, she was awarded the Best Finance Minister in Asia (2006). Moreover, she peaked at 23rd in Forbes' 2008 top 100 most powerful women ranking.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi said the Indonesian government imposed zero tariffs for certain Palestinian products entering Indonesia since the start of the year. This policy aims at supporting Palestine economically.
Despite the "political year" several Indonesia-based securities firms expect to see big appetite from local companies to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2018. In 2018, Indonesia will see a new round of regional elections (to determine local leaders) across the country. These elections are likely to trigger new political tensions, particularly as the country's legislative and presidential elections are to be held the following year.
Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR) approved the government's proposed 2018 state budget bill in a plenary session on Wednesday (25/10), hence turning the bill into law. Taufik Kurniawan, Deputy House Speaker, announced this decision earlier today.
On Monday (16/10), Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, will see the inauguration of the new governor, Anies Baswedan (together with his deputy Sandiaga Uno), for the 2017-2022 period. President Joko Widodo will lead the ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. The ceremony, which starts around 16:00 pm local Jakarta time, will be guarded by 7,000 security personnel.
Business and politics are highly related to each other and therefore it is worthwhile to take a look at chief executive officers' (CEOs) confidence in Indonesia's national politics as well as their expectations for Indonesia's future political conditions. Local media company Kontan recently issued its latest Kontan CEO Confidence Index (KCCI).
Yesterday's Jakarta gubernatorial election seems to have little impact on the performance of Indonesian stocks and the rupiah today (20/04). While Indonesia's benchmark Jakarta Composite Index is cautiously higher (in line with the general trend of Asian stocks this morning), the Indonesian rupiah had depreciated 0.10 percent to IDR 13,332 per US dollar (Bloomberg Dollar Index) by 10:00 am local Jakarta time on Thursday (20/04). The rupiah performance is slightly out of tune with most other Asian currencies but its weakening is still rather insignificant.
After 07:00 am Western Indonesian time zone on Wednesday (19/04), the citizens of Jakarta started to vote for their new governor. It was the second (and final) round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election. In this round the two leaders of the first round (where no candidate managed to obtain the absolute majority of votes) had a face-off. Below, Indonesia Investments provided a short live blog covering the key developments as well as updates of the various quick count results that came in after 14:00 pm local Jakarta time.
The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) decided to keep its doors closed on Wednesday (19/04) as the people of Jakarta will vote in the second (and final) round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election. Earlier, Indonesian President Joko Widodo had already declared Wednesday 19 April 2017 a public holiday for the citizens in Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta. Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia stated that it will keep operations at a minimum on voting day.
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While the 2024 legislative and presidential elections are still far away, we do expect Indonesian media to increasingly cover this topic in 2022, particularly if the COVID-19 pandemic eases, before this topic will really dominate national media in 2023.
Another year has passed, and therefore we would like to wish all of our subscribers a happy, healthy, and successful 2021! The transition to a brand new year is also typically a great occasion to look back at the year that has passed and look forward to the one that has arrived (and some may even have made a couple of New Year’s resolutions in an attempt to achieve a certain goal or change a bad habit).
In recent times, almost each year can be called a ‘political year’ for Indonesia as a big number of elections – especially at the regional level – need to be organized in this vast archipelago. Considering there are 34 provinces in Indonesia, containing 514 regents (kabupaten) and cities (kota), we see elections almost every year.
In September 2020 concern arose over whether the House of Representatives (DPR) is trying to undermine the country’s central bank (Bank Indonesia)’s independence (from the government). The DPR’s legislation body came with a bill (a draft revision of the Bank Indonesia Law) that contains a number of controversial articles, making analysts concerned about the quality of future monetary policymaking in Indonesia.
It is becoming clearer by the day that economic growth in Indonesia, in 2020, will be derailed enormously. Analysts and authoritative institutions (both international and domestic ones) have, again, cut their forecasts for Indonesia’s economic growth in Q2-2020 (decisions that obviously also have consequences for Indonesia’s full-year 2020 economic growth outlooks).
What marked the year 2019 for Indonesia was national politics. Although in these present times each year feels like a ‘political year’ for Indonesia – as the country’s local elections are spread out across years (and in 2020 it will be the turn of voters in various parts of the Archipelago to elect nine governors, 224 regents and 37 mayors) – the year 2019 was in fact a particularly ‘huge political year’ for Indonesia because of the (general) presidential and legislative elections that were held on 17 April 2019.
Although the signs were there in the past couple of weeks, it still came as a surprise to us that defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto made the last-minute decision to throw his support behind Indonesian President Joko Widodo. It effectively means that his Great Indonesia Movement party (or Gerindra) – previously the biggest opposition party – has now joined Widodo’s coalition, and thereby handing Widodo a massive majority in national parliament.
Given a variety of recent events, Indonesia has seemingly entered a liminal phase in its development trajectory, suggesting that its economic vulnerability will be tested in new ways. The present circumstances should be understood as a particular test for the ability of policy initiatives to temper the effects of perturbing exogenous factors and demand shocks to the overall economy.
While the re-election of President Joko Widodo has done much to the quell anxieties over Islamist challenges to Indonesia’s pluralist and relatively-moderated socio-religious and political climate, the question of Islamist opposition potential remains salient for many.
Yes, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who recently won the 2019 presidential election and will therefore guide the world’s largest Archipelago in the 2019-2024 period, said the composition of his new cabinet (which is scheduled to be inaugurated in October 2019) has been finalized. But, no, he has not mentioned any names of the future ministers.
