Sri Mulyani and Pangestu, along with Vice President Boediono, the former head of the central bank, are “most favored by the markets,” said Winang Budoyo, an economist at PT Bank CIMB Niaga.
Investor optimism that Yudhoyono’s election victory heralds a period of rapid economic growth for the nation of 240 million people helped make Indonesian stocks Asia’s best performers this year. Moody’s Investors Service last month raised its rating on the country’s debt to the highest in more than a decade after the government steered the economy through the global downturn that dragged Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore into recession.
Indonesia’s gross domestic product expanded 4 percent in the three months ended June 30 and 4.4 percent in the preceding quarter. The Jakarta Composite Index has more than doubled this year, the biggest gain in Asia and lagging behind only Peru,
Brazil and Russia globally.
Yudhoyono has pledged to bring growth above 7 percent, from an average 5.1 percent this decade. Indonesia wants to be included among the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, Emil Salim, a presidential adviser, has said.
China’s economy expanded 7.9 percent in quarter ended June 30; India’s by 6.1 percent.
“If they get infrastructure investment rolling, we will see very high growth rates in the second half of this administration,” said James Castle, president of Jakarta-based business advisory services company CastleAsia. We “could get 8-9 percent growth if they break the infrastructure logjam.”
Economics Team
Sri Mulyani and Pangestu, who hold doctorates in economics from U.S. universities, are fluent in English and follow a more liberal economic outlook than most Indonesian politicians.
Mulyani, 47, who was first made finance minister in 2005, shook up bureaucrats with a new set of remuneration packages, restructured the tax office and cleaned government practices that can lead to graft. Euromoney named her as the Finance
Minister of the Year in 2006.
Yudhoyono lured her away as an executive director at the International Monetary Fund to become planning minister in his first cabinet in October 2004. She relinquishes her post as coordinating minister for economic affairs, which she took on after her predecessor Boediono was appointed as central bank governor in 2008.
State Secretary Hatta Rajasa was named to that position.The choice of Rajasa may be “a master stroke,” said Castle, who also heads the American Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia, where he has lived for more than three decades. “He’s very good at getting people to cooperate. If he brings those skills to bear, that should make the economic team’s job easier,” he said.
Minister, Campaigner
Before serving as state secretary, Rajasa was Yudhoyono’s transport minister. Rajasa, who led Yudhoyono’s re-election campaign, comes from the National Mandate Party and was the Muslim-based group’s secretary-general from 2000 until 2005. The
former oilman also was his party’s parliamentary leader from 1999 to 2000.
Rajasa has “limited economic experience but it’s hoped he’ll be able to provide a political shield for economic ministers under him in the parliament,” said Fauzi Ichsan, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in Jakarta.
Darwin Saleh, a lecturer of economics from Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party, was named energy minister. He has “insufficient experience in that field,” said Umar Juoro, a commissioner at PT Bank Internasional Indonesia Tbk. Saleh told reporters after his job interview with Yudhoyono that he was “ready to take the task,” arguing he handled financing issues in the oil sector when he was a banker in the 1990s.
Party Politics
“Partisan politics apparently still played a significant role in the assignment of other key ministerial posts,” said Helmi Arman, an economist at PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk in Jakarta, in an e-mailed response to questions. The president
must make sure “cabinet ministers don’t go their separate ways” and that they stick to the government’s agenda, he said.
New Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, 46, is Indonesia’s most high-profile diplomat. Before he was appointed as representative to the United Nations in 2007, Natalegawa served as the country’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. His career
began to rise when he was foreign affairs spokesman from 2002 until 2005, when Indonesia was under the spotlight after the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings.
Top Diplomat
Natalegawa spent his high school years in England and studied at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and University of Cambridge before receiving a doctorate degree from the Australian National University in 1993.
The Democrat Party, which held 10 percent of parliament during Yudhoyono’s first term, almost tripled its share to 148 seats in April 9 legislative elections, making it the biggest party in the 560-strong body.
Yudhoyono’s coalition controls 75 percent of parliament after Golkar, the second-largest party in the house, joined the grouping following the election of Aburizal Bakrie on Oct. 8 as party chairman. Bakrie served in the president’s first-term team as chief social welfare minister.
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