With interest, I have noticed the opinion of Stefan S. Handoyo regarding "Population size and economic achievement", printed in The Jakarta Post on June 15. Especially since he is a senior economist, I was hoping to find some valuable insights and lessons. However, what I actually found was a lot of inaccurate facts and some rather odd conclusions.

Market size and growth are important factors. I would recommend, though, studying the UNCTAD's "World Investment Prospect Survey" and their "World Investment Report" to find out why Indonesia is faring so poorly in attracting foreign investment despite boasting the fourth-largest population in the world.

You may also find answers to why the sixth to eighth most populous nations - Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria - also fail to become major destinations for investors. Hence "large population" should by no means be mixed up with "market size".

The author follows with a conclusion that declares China, India and Indonesia the jewels of Asia due to their "big and young populations". I find this highly debatable, especially since the author is quick to add this provides a big and healthy pool of skilled and unskilled labor for companies in the industrialized world.

Education, qualification, developing leadership skills, empowering people to achieve equal opportunities, ensuring proper healthcare, a wise road map to reducing dependency on natural resources, just to name a few - these are the policies to turning Indonesia into an emerging economy.

The East, then, is highly incorrect. Aging populations = slowing demand? What about the predominance of senior citizens throughout Europe? Besides the fact that spotting senior citizens is nothing "despicable", senior citizens hold a huge amount of purchasing power in the West and in Japan.

It is only a matter of how a society and economy can adapt to changing environments. Even in countries with decreasing populations (e.g. Germany, Russia, Japan) "doomsday" is not around the corner as long as intelligent policies are conceived and implemented.

As for Indonesia, scientists who do research on demographic development most certainly would confirm there is nothing much to worry about. Certainly not within the next 25 years! Our fertility rate still stands at a healthy rate of some 2.3 children born per woman. Enough to sustain a population growth of more than 1 percent annually. The median age standing at 27.6 years indicates that Indonesia's population is quite young.

The mentioned gradual shift actually is a good thing, since in the foreseeable future the share of the "productive" age bracket of 15-64 years will increase. Advocating higher population growth rates bring with it imminent problems. Can Indonesia keep pace in providing jobs for a steeply increasing labor force? Can the economy grow fast enough to support prosperity growth measured by GDP per capita?

Do we have enough space on our - on average - already densely populated islands? Is the state budget big enough to eradicate poverty and provide better education? I definitely cannot support the author's view of focusing on growth strategies through population growth. Keeping the population at a manageable size and increasing their productivity is certainly a better solution.

Eckart Schumacher

BSD City, Banten

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