The global economic trend is now changing. When a couple decades ago the economy was driven by America and Europe, now it's slowly shifting to Asian domination. While western contries is now struggling to get through a storm of crisis, many Asian countries is swinging through it and remaining stable. Indonesia is one of those countries, with inflation rate of 4,3% in 2012. Yes, our financial stability is good, but we can't be viewed as Asian top economic leader yet.
Japan, as we already know, has been the giant power of Asia, but now they're no longer a single player. There are emergance of new powers in Asia, such as China, South Korea, and India.
With the policy to keep their currency weak, China is able to import affordable goods worldwide. American lobby (or some might call it "pressure") to raise CNY currency has been disregarded by Chinese government. It's good to know that a country could stand up for its vision despite all the pressures from outside.
Yes, I think vision is an important key for the development of a country. We can see South Korea for instance. It has guideline for a long-term development. In order to stimulate industrial advancement, the government facilitates labor-intensive entrepreneurs to change their business into heavy industry, such as production of cars and electronic devices. As you can see now, Korean manufactures has become a rising star, leading the global market. This program has also created many new chaebol (business conglomerates) in Korea.
Hallyu is not one night project either. South Korea gradually sent their artists abroad to learn from the world's best art schools. These emissaries has come back to generate a Korean culture wave across the universe. A wonderful work from a small country who has been destroyed by Japanese invasion and civil war some decades ago. FYI, South Korea got their independence day in the same year as Indonesia and look at the large gap between us now.
Side by side with the other Asian powers, India shouldn't be underestimated. I read a lot about their fast growing technology development. The capital of Karataka state, Bangalore, ranks as one of India's most prosperous and progressive cities and pace-setter in software development and IT industry. Dubbed as the Silicon Valley of India, it is moving boldly into the 21st century, propelled by some of the best and brightest technological and scientific minds in the world. This city has attracted the Indian youth -- whose parents immigated from India to fulfill American dream long time before -- to get back to their ancestors' land and create startup business there. The government fully support their homecoming by providing lifetime visa. Therefore, these "agents of change" wouldn't have difficulty to stay in India.
It got me thinking of the same characteristics between Indonesia and India. We share some similar social problems: population density, corruption, and poverty. But, why can't we follow their improvement?
Well, I think the basic need should be met first. It is proper education! You know what, according to the Learning Curve from Pearson education firm, Indonesia ranked 40 in terms of education system. Thus, we are classified in group 5 (at least one standard deviation BELOW the mean). The two education superpowers - Finland and South Korea - are followed by three other high-performing Asian education system: Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. You can read the full interesting report here. There's also an inspiring article from Yudhistira ANM Massardi about the education in Indonesia compared to Finland and South Korea.
I see the importance of building this country as a whole. It's good that some people are devoted to serve in micro-sector to help people individually. But we need not only curative and corrective action per person, we need prior plan to prevent, maintain, and improve the quality of life in the broader range of society. We need people who understand the "big picture" and start to work from there.
I really hope that it started with policy making. We should have strong vision for our education and business development. We could use more entrepreneurs, especially in the field of IT and science. Indonesia is a very promising market, you know. We have high amount of population and there's also high amount of opportunity to fulfiil their needs. If smart citizens are not encouraged to build this country, but pushed aside by selfish interest instead, where would this nation come to? Its downfall, I suppose.
