To achieve Golden Indonesia 2045, the nation must look beyond headline GDP growth and fundamentally transform its economy through higher productivity, competitive industries and quality jobs for all.

MSCI isn’t questioning whether investors can pull their money out of Indonesia—it's questioning whether the market's prices are real, leaving regulators racing to prove that multi-trillion-rupiah fines punish the manipulators rather than the investors caught in the crossfire.

With MSCI threatening to reclassify Indonesia as a standalone market, Jakarta's credibility will not be saved by issuing more rules, but by proving it has the muscle to enforce them.

State-owned lender Bank Mandiri (BMRI) recently issued US$750 million in perpetual bonds, an uncommon instrument among Indonesian corporates, with an initial annual distribution rate of 7.35 percent. The issuance is intended to strengthen the bank’s capital base by bolstering its Additional Tier 1 (AT1) capital and supporting business expansion. However, it has also fuelled speculation that BMRI, along with other Himbara banks, may be facing mounting financial demands from their involvement in financing government programmes.

Anwar Ibrahim's high-stakes gamble to normalize ties with Myanmar's junta chief may win cheap points at home, but it threatens to shatter ASEAN's united front and abandon the Rohingya to peril.

Behind the facade of regular elections and court battles, the country has quietly traded democratic governance for a militarized cartel, begging the real question: Who can still say no to the President?

Trading traditional consensus building for high-stakes presidential dealmaking, Prabowo has transformed Indonesian diplomacy into a high-wire act of transactional multi-alignment where soaring global ambition collides with mounting geopolitical risks.

To survive his sinking popularity and an unruly coalition, President Prabowo is reviving New Order-style remilitarization, turning the TNI into his political shield at the peril of military professionalism.

Greatness is not declared from a podium, and as state control replaces market discipline, Indonesia’s vital signs are heading the wrong way.

Two years in, the President's flagship free meals program is cannibalizing regional budgets, stoking food inflation and risking systemic economic fallout for the sake of political ambition.

Indonesia isn't undergoing an economic boom under Prabowo, it is running a state-funded illusion on an off-budget credit card that is about to max out.

The controversy surrounding Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka has entered a new phase. Criticism of how he reached office is increasingly channeled into talk of impeachment. Paradoxically, the more it is discussed, the less likely it seems to happen. The mechanism exists, but the politics suggest its impact will be symbolic rather than institutional.

Everywhere you look, the country seems to be teetering on the brink, and whether he likes it or not President Prabowo has been seen by most people as being slow to respond to the problems, if not causing the problems themselves.  

The LME will start trading a new hot-rolled-coil (HRC) Steel Shanghai contract widely regarded as the global benchmark for the flat steel sector.

For too long, it has been more profitable to destroy tropical forests than to conserve them, even though they provide services essential for the survival of many countries and for the welfare of us all.

Sustainable-finance instruments may be available, but their availability does not automatically translate into new energy-transition projects.

Bailouts and premium hikes buy time. Only evidence-based decisions, standardized care and smarter purchasing can keep national health insurance solvent.

Indonesia’s reforms have improved transparency and regulation, but their impact remains constrained by structural problems that stricter rules alone cannot resolve.

As rising global debt and geopolitical shocks squeeze developing nations, Indonesia’s push for ambitious expansion hinges on disciplined spending, targeted tax reform and private-sector competitiveness.

With three months left in the year, Indonesia has collected barely two-thirds of its annual tax target. The government now faces an uncomfortable choice over how aggressively to pursue the remainder and where to restrain spending. Every effort to balance the books carries consequences for businesses and people who depend on public services. Who will bear the cost if the government's revenue ambitions exceed its capacity to collect?

While the recent change at the helm of the state electricity company seems to signal continuity at first glance, given the President's urging a “comprehensive transformation”, Suroso might actually have a chance to spread his wings as PLN's former renewables director.

To end recurring food poisoning outbreaks linked to the flagship free meals program, we must rethink the kitchen: Blending freshly cooked meals with safely processed local foods is the key to scaling without sickening our children.

Indonesia cannot stop climate disasters from arriving, but its schools must stop waiting for the smoke to clear before they start preparing.

Vocational schools may train obedient workers, but without critical thinking, they risk producing a generation of citizens who can only follow orders.

As Indonesian faces functional extinction in Australian classrooms by 2031, both nations stand on the brink of a costly strategic blind spot.

India maintains that a global multipolar order must start with a multipolar Asia, rejecting both a US-dominated unipolar structure and a China-centric "Asia for Asians" model.

President Prabowo Subianto wants to revive Indonesia's struggling textile industry by establishing a new state-owned enterprise (SOE), potentially drawing on assets left behind by bankrupt textile giant Sritex. The plan comes amid factory closures, mass layoffs and mounting competition from cheaper imports. But with much of the industry's production capacity already underutilized, the government faces a difficult question: Will another state-owned company restore the industry's competitiveness or merely add to its problems?