TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
From tall order to piece of cake: Presidential candidates vow to beef up R&D
The vision and mission documents of the three candidates vying for the presidency next year show that all are committed to boosting the country's R&D spending, but experts commented that their individual targets ranged widely from “way too pessimistic” to “too ambitious”, with only one candidate addressing the necessary institutional restructuring.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Presidential candidates (from left) Prabowo Subianto, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo join hands on Oct. 30, 2023 for a photo session at Merdeka Palace in Central Jakarta, following a luncheon hosted by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. (Antara/Andi Firdaus)
All three presidential candidates have submitted campaign documents declaring the same commitment to ramp up spending on research and development (R&D) if they win, but experts said some of the defined targets looked “too ambitious” while others were "too easy" to meet.
Indonesia’s research and development (R&D) expenditure was a mere 0.24 percent of GDP in 2021, according to data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). That translates to US$2.85 billion in hard figures, given Indonesia’s GDP of $1.18 trillion that year.
The three candidates’ campaigns thus promise an increase of between twofold to tenfold in the R&D share of GDP from 2021.
According to the required vision and mission documents submitted to the General Elections Commission (KPU), the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka pair has the highest target, aiming to hike R&D spending to between 1.5 and 2 percent of GDP by 2029.
The candidate pair of Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD has targeted 1 percent of GDP over the same period, while the Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar pair has targeted a range of between 0.4 and 0.6 percent.
The government has repeatedly expressed its confidence in reaching GDP of $3.5 trillion by 2030, assuming an annual GDP growth rate of above 5 percent.
Based on that assumption, GDP in Indonesia could reach $3.32 trillion by 2029. This would put the presidential hopefuls’ R&D targets within a range of $13.3 billion and $66.5 billion, or between five to 23 times the 2021 figure.
