Economic Transformation Towards a Developed and Prosperous Indonesia

According to the World Bank (2019) that a country can be categorized as a high-income (prosperous) country, when its GNI (Gross National Income) per capita is higher than US$ 12,535.  

Meanwhile, a developed country is a country that is able to meet at least 75 percent of its domestic technological needs by its own citizens, not imported from other nations.  

Such a country is also called as a technology-innovator country (UNESCO, 2010).  In the last three two decades there have been countries with GNI per capita bigger than US$ 15,000 such as United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Brunei Darussalm, and Oman. 

However, since their technological capacity still at the level of a technology-adaptor country where more than 75 percent of their technological needs are imported, these countries are prosperous (rich), but not developed yet.  

Rich nations that rely heavily on the exploitation of their natural resources, not because of their technological (innovation) capacity, would easily slip to become poor due to external (global) economic or political shocks. 

The recent telling example is Venezuela.  Since its oil boom in the mid 1990s to 2012, Venezuela was very rich nation with GNI per capita ranged from US$ 15,000 to US$ 40,000.  Then as oil price dropped dramatically from US$ 120 per barrel in 2012 to only US$ 50 to US$ 60 per barrel in 2013 up until now, the nation has been trapped in poverty.  

Inflation rate is extraordinary high more than 1,000 percent, and the majority of its people facing hard times to get enough food, water, health services and other basic needs.

Despite significant improvement in almost all aspects of human life and development sectors, after 75 years of its independence,  Indonesia is still a developing, high-middle income nation with GNI per capita US$ 4,050 (World Bank, 2020) and its technological capacity at a level of a technology-adaptor country (UNESCO and UNDP, 2020).  

Indonesia is also confronted with a high income inequality (a gap bwteen rich vs. poor population) reflected by its high GINI coefficient of 0.39 (BPS, 2020), and the total wealth of its one percent richest citizens equals to 49.3 percent of the country's total wealth (Credite Suisse, 2012). 

In order to materialize its independece goal as a developed, just - prosperous, and sovereign nation, all Indonesian nation components (government and people) have to work smarter, harder, and more sinergistically to produce a higher and inclusive economic growth, average more than 7 percent per year which enables all working-aged citizens employed and all people prosperous on a fair and sustainable basis.  

Empirical facts have taught us that all nations which have been able to escape a middle-income trap to become advanced and prosperous nations (34 OECD member countries, Singapore, and New Zealand) are those which successfully making its economic transformation.