Jakarta Globe, Vanesha Manuturi, Feb 20, 2015
Jakarta. The spotlight will be on Indonesia this April as it hosts the 24th World Economic Forum on East Asia in the nation’s capital, underlining the country’s growing influence in the regional economy.
The 24th World Economic Forum on East Asia will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta on April 19-21, 2015. (Antara Photo/Andika Wahyu) |
Jakarta. The spotlight will be on Indonesia this April as it hosts the 24th World Economic Forum on East Asia in the nation’s capital, underlining the country’s growing influence in the regional economy.
Some 650
top business executives and government leaders will attend the international
forum, a regional spin-off of the annual WEF in Davos, Switzerland, where they
will discuss matters ranging from the economy to education.
This will
be Indonesia’s second stint at hosting the forum, scheduled from April 19 to 21
at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta.
Some of the
companies slated to be represented at the forum include Shell, Chevron, Google
and Microsoft.
The forum
will also coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference in
Bandung, featuring 109 representatives from the two continents.
“Indonesia
is the largest economy in the Southeast Asian region and is the only [Southeast
Asian] country in the G-20,” Sushant Palakurthi Rao, the senior director of the
WEF in the Asia-Pacific region, said at a media briefing in Jakarta on
Wednesday.
“It plays a
very important role in connecting the big economies and the emerging
countries.”
The forum
comes at a time when the Indonesian government is seeking more foreign direct
investment to speed up infrastructure development in the country, where
investments make up a third of total economic output.
“The timing
is right considering our big plans for development,” Bachrul Chairi, the Trade
Ministry’s director general for international trade, said on Wednesday.
“Indonesia
has to take advantage of this moment where world-class CEOs will meet our
government leaders, especially the president. We can present our plans and
network with the CEOs in our efforts to bolster Indonesia’s economy.”
President
Joko Widodo has set out ambitious infrastructure development plans for the next
five years — from building power plants to generate an additional 35 gigawatts
of electricity, to developing 24 new seaports — and has reached out to both
local and foreign investors to boost their presence in the country.
The
Investment Coordinating Board, or BKPM, targets total investment this year of
Rp 519.5 trillion ($40.4 billion) this year, up 14 percent from last year, with
more than 60 percent coming from overseas.
“Growth rates
[in Indonesia] are high, but infrastructure must keep up,” Rao said.
“[The WEF
sees] the potential in Indonesia. It has been most improved. To maintain that
positive momentum, it’s good that the [infrastructure development] vision is
implemented quickly.”
The country
recorded its slowest pace of economic growth in five years in 2014, at 5.02
percent, down from 5.8 percent in 2013. This year, the government hopes growth
will rebound to 5.7 percent, backed by increased government and private-sector
spending.
Indonesia
ranked 34th in the WEF’s Global Competitiveness report for the 2014 to 2015
period, improving by four places from the year before.
GlobeAsia
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