Asia's Newest Trillion-Dollar Economy Faces Bittersweet Win
- Indonesia faces challenges in infrastructure, tax and poverty
- Growth struggling to accelerate even after eight rate cuts
The Mystery Over Indonesian Spending, Oct. 9
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Indonesia is on track to become a trillion-dollar economy and should be the envy of Southeast Asia. Yet on some key measures, the region’s biggest economy is falling behind.
The nation lags neighbors on infrastructure development, faces a fiscal shortfall that’s heaping pressure on the state budget and still has 28 million people living in poverty. That’s even after reforms saw the economy’s value more than double over the past decade to $932 billion, with President Joko Widodo’s government forecasting growth this year of about 5 percent.