Public Lecture “Indonesia and the Middle Income Trap” by Prof. Peter Robertson
(Dean of Business School The University of Western Australia/ Professor UWA Business School)
Sharah -International Office FEB UI
DEPOK (9/5/2018) — On May 9, 2018, we received a visit from Professor Peter Robertson, Dean of University of Western Australia Business School. He also gave a special lecture about “Indonesia and the Middle Income Trap” at the ISTAMA Room, Department of Accounting FEB UI Building.
Professor Peter discussed about Indonesia’s economic growth and its current situation. He started by explaining why growth is important and Indonesia’s history of economic growth. The decades of the 1990’s and 2000’s saw the largest decline in world poverty mostly due to China’s economic rise, which in turn successfully reduced poverty “headcount” by 400-600 million people. Indonesia has also reduced its poverty, proven that people living in poverty have reduced by halves since 1980’s and even after the 1998 financial crisis. However, there are still around 27 million people – or 10% of Indonesian population – who are “officially” still living in poverty. To reduce poverty and raise living standards, Indonesia needs faster economic growth.
Indonesia is currently faced by the Middle Income Trap. It is a concern that Indonesia needs to escape from. China was poorer than Indonesia in early 2000’s but caught up and passed Indonesia in 2005. If China continues to grow rapidly it would likely catch up with developed countries such as USA by 2050. But for Indonesia, measurement for speeding up growth need to be taken or else Indonesia won’t catch up until 2108.
Finally, faster growth is necessary to reduce poverty in Indonesia at faster rate. Growth will continue to reduce poverty. But unless growth is faster, Indonesia will remain a middle income country for many decades to come.
We would like to thank Professor Peter for making time in giving such an insightful lecture, and we look forward to more collaboration between UWA Business School and FEB UI in the future. (Des)
(iofebui – SA)