Publication:
Indonesia Economic Quarterly, January 2017: Sustaining Reform Momentum

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (3.12 MB)
889 downloads
English Text (225.45 KB)
45 downloads
Published
2017-01
ISSN
Date
2017-01-31
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia's economy as on January 2017. The return of global policy uncertainty and financial market volatility represent risks to Indonesia’s growth outlook. However, Indonesia’s recent economic performance and policy reforms can help weather these risks. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth eased in third quarter as government consumption fell. The current account deficit narrowed and direct investment was strong in third quarter. Domestic financial conditions remain robust despite recent global headwinds. Fiscal policy credibility was enhanced through expenditure cuts in 2016 and more realistic revenue targets in the approved 2017 Budget. Baseline projections for real GDP growth remain at 5.1 percent for 2016 and 5.3 percent in 2017. Improving the quality of public spending is critical for Indonesia to achieve its development goals in the short to medium term. Student-centered teaching practices result in better student learning outcomes.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2017. Indonesia Economic Quarterly, January 2017: Sustaining Reform Momentum. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25970 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Indonesia Economic Quarterly FY14 : Compilation of the July 2013, October 2013, December 2013 and March 2014 Indonesia Economic Quarterly Reports
    (Washington, DC, 2014-06) World Bank
    The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia's economy, and places these in a longer term and global context. Based on these developments and on policy changes over the period, the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia's economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of Indonesia's medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Indonesia's evolving economy. Indonesia's fiscal and monetary policy settings will continue to play a key role in facilitating the adjustments now taking place and in minimizing associated risks. There are, however, trade-offs between the objectives of restraining inflation, supporting growth and adjusting the current account deficit to the tighter financing environment. Monetary policy faces the challenge of calibrating interest and exchange rates so as to guard against rising inflationary pressures as cost pressures rise (such as from the pass-through of the weaker currency or wage increases) while facilitating improvements in the external balances, and without unduly crimping economic growth and weakening public and private sector balance sheets. With the 2014 budget under discussion with Parliament, fiscal policy faces the challenge of slower revenue growth, and higher energy subsidy and nominal debt-financing costs, raising the importance of lifting further the quality of spending and of revenue mobilization. In response to the intensification of financial market pressures, and in conjunction with the monetary policy and currency market measures mentioned above, on August 23 the Government announced a policy package containing measures intended to improve the current account, safeguard purchasing power and facilitate growth, contain inflationary pressure, and maintain investment flows. Some of the reform measures involved retracting interventionist policies on trade and proposals for improving certainty in the business environment.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Economic Quarterly, December 2014 : Delivering Change
    (Washington, DC, 2014-12) World Bank
    The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia s economy, and places these in a longerterm and global context. Based on these developments, and on policy changes over the period, the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia s economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of Indonesia s medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Indonesia s evolving economy.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Economic Quarterly, July 2013 : Adjusting to Pressures
    (Washington, DC, 2013-07) World Bank
    The second quarter of 2013 was an eventful one as Indonesia's economy, policy settings and financial markets adjusted to pressures which have been mounting over recent quarters and to shifts in the global environment. Following slightly weaker-than-expected growth in the first quarter, there are signs that domestic demand, particularly investment, has continued to moderate. On the fiscal front, the combination of lower revenues and higher subsidy spending continued to pressure public finances. A revised Budget, incorporating a long a waited increase in subsidized fuel prices, along with a comprehensive compensation package to reduce the impact of higher fuel prices on the poor, was approved on June 17. Meanwhile, international financial markets have reacted strongly to the prospect of quantitative easing in the US winding down in coming quarters, triggering a major sell-off in emerging market assets, including Indonesia, prompting Bank Indonesia (BI) to adjust interest rates higher.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Economic Quarterly, December 2015
    (Washington, DC, 2015-12) World Bank
    The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia’s economy, and places these in a longerterm and global context. Based on these developments, and on policy changes over the period, the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia’s economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of Indonesia’s medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Indonesia’s evolving economy. This paper discusses about the economic conditions of Indonesia for the year 2015. Emerging market assets rebounded in October 2015 after the sharp losses recorded in August and September, when the uncertainty about the Chinese economic slowdown and the U.S. interest rate outlook was particularly high. Despite a more favorable market sentiment, capital flows to emerging economies have remained weak and borrowing costs relatively high. In addition to tight financing conditions, Indonesia faced subdued external demand for its exports in the near term and persistently low commodity prices over the medium run. In 2015, fire in Indonesia cost nearly twice that of reconstruction following the 2004 tsunami in Aceh. Agriculture and forestry have sustained losses and damages in trillions. Sustained exposure to haze could also lead to the volcano effect, i.e., a decrease in plant productivity in the short term due to limited sun exposure and a deleterious effect on plant physiology and photosynthesis. The recurring nature of Indonesia’s fire crisis is of particular concern. Another potential step in Indonesia’s new reform process was the country’s signaling its intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in the near future. Whether membership materializes or not, the agreement is likely to have a limited impact on trade, because import tariffs in member countries are already low and Indonesia has trade agreements with most of them.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Economic Quarterly, October 2013 : Continuing Adjustment
    (World Bank, Jakarta, 2013-10) World Bank
    The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia's economy, and places these in a longer-term and global context. Based on these developments and on policy changes over the period, the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia's economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of Indonesia's medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Indonesia's evolving economy. A key component of the reform process has been the devolution of responsibility for basic education services to local governments and schools, and improvements in local governance can thus play a vital role in raising the quality of basic education and ensuring children leave school with adequate skills. Indeed, the Indonesian Local Education Governance (ILEG) surveys, conducted in 2009 and 2012, suggest that the quality of local governance is important for improving district education performance, making it important to continue to address key governance constraints, and to better coordinate and integrate central government financing in local education planning.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Serbia Country Economic Memorandum : Productivity and Exports
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01) Sestovic, Lazar; Miovic, Peter
    In order to have both dynamic and better balanced growth, Serbia needs to rely more on exports. In the last decade, Serbia's growth has depended primarily on demand that was fueled by excessive debt finance. In the future, the Serbian economy would be better served by increasing its reliance on exports as a new, potentially powerful source of growth. Serbia's export share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is currently 25 percent, but that figure should be closer to 50-75 percent, considering that all European Union (EU) comparator countries1 have export shares of GDP of 60-80 percent. Some sectors of the economy are already better positioned than others to export. For example, sectors in the traditional export base of Serbia, such as food and some chemical products still have vast potential for growth. Agriculture is widely considered to have significant potential for improvement. Although Serbia has recently become a net food exporter, these exports could be substantially higher. The Serbian government's number one task is to accelerate reforms to create an environment that is highly conducive to export-led growth. Serbia will need to fundamentally alter its growth model in order to compete effectively in world markets. The past model of relying on excessive inflows of capital and credit coupled with a consumption boom has run its course in all European countries, including Serbia.
  • Publication
    Recipe for a Livable Planet
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-20) Sutton, William R.; Lotsch, Alexander; Prasann, Ashesh
    The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal. Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System offers the first comprehensive global strategic framework to mitigate the agrifood system’s contributions to climate change, detailing affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security. These actions, which are urgently needed, offer three additional benefits: improving food supply reliability, strengthening the global food system’s resilience to climate change, and safeguarding vulnerable populations. This practical guide outlines global actions and specific steps that countries at all income levels can take starting now, focusing on six key areas: investments, incentives, information, innovation, institutions, and inclusion. Calling for collaboration among governments, businesses, citizens, and international organizations, it maps a pathway to making agrifood a significant contributor to addressing climate change and healing the planet.
  • Publication
    ECOWAS's Infrastructure : A Regional Perspective
    (2011-12-01) Ranganathan, Rupa; Foster, Vivien
    Infrastructure improvements boosted growth in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by one percentage point per capita per year during 1995-2005, primarily thanks to growth in information and communication technology. Deficient power infrastructure held growth back by 0.1 percent. Raising the region's infrastructure to the level of Mauritius could boost growth by 5 percentage points. Overall, infrastructure in the 15 ECOWAS countries ranks consistently behind southern Africa across many indicators. However, there is parity in access to household services -- water, sanitation, and power. ECOWAS has a well-developed regional road network, though sea corridors and ports need attention. Surface transport is expensive and slow, owing to cartelization, restrictive regulations, and delays. There is no regional rail network. Air transport has improved despite the lack of a strong hub-and-spoke structure. Safety remains a concern. Electrical power, the most expensive and least reliable in Africa, reaches 50 percent of the population but meets just 30 percent of demand. Regional power trading would bring substantial benefits if Guinea could become a hydropower exporter. Prices for critical ICT services are relatively high. Recent panregional initiatives have improved roaming. New projects are underway to provide access and improved services to unconnected countries. Completing and maintaining ECOWAS's infrastructure will require sustained spending of $1.5 billion annually for a decade, with one-third going to power. Although the necessary spending is only 1 percent of regional GDP, some countries' share is between 5 and 25 percent of national GDP. Clearly, external assistance will be needed.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Public Expenditure Review 2020
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-21) World Bank
    Indonesia's development trajectory has been remarkable over the past 20 years, supported by macroeconomic stability and prudent fiscal management. The economy grew on average by 5.3 percent annually between 2000 and 2018, while gross national income (GNI) per capita rose six-fold from US$580 in 2000 to US$3,840 in 2018.1 As a result, Indonesia has made huge gains in poverty reduction, from 19.1 percent of the population in 2000 to 9.4 percent of the population by March 2019. Prudent fiscal management has played an important role in supporting macroeconomic stability and growth. This Public Expenditure Review (PER) aims to help identify key constraints to efficient and effective public spending and offer ways to improve the quality of spending to achieve Indonesia's development objectives. Public expenditure is a key contributor to closing Indonesia's development gaps, both through direct spending and through creating the right environment to attract private investment to help close the gaps. This PER covers the following topics: public financial management, the intergovernmental fiscal transfer system, and data for better policy making (institutional environment), and sectors: health, education and social assistance (human capital), national roads, housing, water resource management, and water supply and sanitation (infrastructure).