ndonesia’s economy has gone
through a dramatic change and
progress in the past two decades.
The economy grew rapidly between
1990 and 1997, with an average
GDP growth of 7 per cent with a
profound change in the employment
structure, shrinking agriculture, and
expanding service sectors (World
Bank, 2011). Its rapid industrial
growth was led by manufactured
exports, the content of which
evolved from labour-intensive
simple consumer goods and basic
resource processing to a wide
range of manufactured products
with increasing technological
sophistication (Aswicahyono, Hill &
Narjoko, 2010; Hill & Tandon, 2010).
The Asian economic crisis, however,
hit the Indonesian economy hard,
leading to a massive economic
contraction of over 13 per cent in
one year. Subsequent economic
recovery has been remarkably swift,
particularly given the fact that the
country was also building new
democratic processes (Hill & Tandon,
2010). Economic growth resumed in
2000, and by 2009, it was the thirdfastest
growing economy amongst
the G20 countries, with a projected
GDP growth of 6.4 per cent for 2012
(World Bank, 2012).