Indonesia: A Growing Muslim Nation With 500+ Languages - Essay Sample

Introduction

Indonesia is known as a vast growing country. It has a population of 260000 million people who have spread out in the 17000 island that is 3200 miles away from Sumatra in the west. It is well known to be a Muslim country since 86 percent of the nation consists of Muslims. More than 500 languages are spoken in Indonesia, making it an ethnic country. Suharto has been president for 30 years, and in his reign, he had tried to bring the nation together. Although he is known to be a virtual dictator, he was backed up by the military establishment. During his ruling, Indonesia was known to be a developing country in terms of economy though there was brutal repress. He was also famously known as a "crony capitalist." This is because he favored his family and supporters of business enterprises. Due to the massive debts, Indonesia took a tailspin in its economy in 1997. Therefore, Indonesia is seen to have evolved economically on the different ruling of different presidents.

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During President Suharto's ruling Indonesia economy grew at a steadfast pace. However, this constant growth was not sustainable. Suharto was a dictator, and there was a cost in this growing economy. His brutality repressed the internal dissent. He used his political crown of being a president to favor his family and his supporter's business enterprises. Suharto failed economically as a president. He was unable to sustain the economy of Indonesia. This is because of the debts that he accumulated in Indonesia during the 1990s. It is known that in 1997, the economy of Indonesia went to the tailspin. This is because Suharto used the 43 billion shillings that were funded by The International Monetary fund for his family purpose and his cronies. Therefore this could not sustain the economy of Indonesia. People did not hesitate to protest because of this act, and he was forced to resign from the presidential seat.

After Suharto resigned, two presidents were elected Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo in 2004 and 2014, respectively. This has not helped the Indonesia economy to grow at a higher rate. However, it has grown at a slower pace because there is no revolution in the economic sector. Indonesia has been ranked as a country that has high levels of corruption. Protectionist policies have sheltered many companies from foreign competitions. Indonesia has also subsidized and controlled the prices of many products in the country example, gasoline. This has distorted the market mechanism. The country is also suffering from poor infrastructure. There are poor road transport, few power stations, ports, and roads. There is also inefficiency since several economic sectors are dominated by state-run, which are inefficient. Poor logistics and poor transportation have led to a slow growth rate of the Indonesia economy.

However, Joko Widodo, the new president of Indonesia, gave a pledge to liberate Indonesian economy and to improve the infrastructure. He took action in 2015 of abolishing the subsidy of gasoline in the state and allowed the markets to set their prices. These subsidies were expensive to the country since their initial cost was $20 billion in a year. This was equivalent to 15 percent of government outlay. Widodo has also improved the public infrastructure by investing in 10 port, 2000km of roads, five deep seas, ten industrial parks, and 25 hydroelectric dams. To sum up, Indonesia is still known to face economic headwinds. This is because the country's economy depends on the market prices of commodities, which have fallen instantly. Also, the country is persistently known to have high corruption rates, which is a burden to the country and distorts the country's economy.