323-Indonesia
Introduction: Indonesia was a Dutch colony. It is the world's largest archipelago state and muslim country with 222 million inhabitants. Malays compose the main ethnic but there are also indigenous in Borneo, Sulawesi and Iranjaya. Despite the prevalence of Islam, Bali is a buddhist and Hindu island while East Timor was mostly Christian. East Timor finally got its independence.
Politics: After independence, indonesia was ruled by Sukarno and became the center of the no alignment movement with the Bandoung conference. Amid economic stagnation, the General Suharto, took the power in 1965 and waged a war against the communist party (500,000 people killed). After the Asian financial crisis, Suharto was replaced by a more democratic regime. Indonesia is today ruled by Megawati, the daughter of the republic's first president Sukarno.
Due to the religious and ethnic diversity, many separatist movements are active: In Aceh, an oil-rich province in northern Sumatra, in Kalimantan (Borneo), in Sulawesi (Celebes), and the Moluccas. Violence between christians and muslims, or between Chinese's and Malays occur frequently. The most worrying fact is the increase of Islamism (See above).
Freedom house ranks Indonesia as partly free. We have some reservations about this rating.
Economy: Indonesia has many raw materials and a cheap labor force. As other Southeast Asian countries, the economy registered a strong increase and the output grew by 7% per year between 1987 and 1996. Indonesia was perceived as a new "Asian Tiger" . Unfortunately, the financial crisis in 1997 occurred on a large scale. Due to bad investment, the weaknesses of the banking system and endemic corruption the crisis was very deep. Today economy has recovered but many political uncertainties (And notably, Islamism) maintain a poor climate for foreign investments. The gross capital formation only attains 16% in 2003 and the high technology in percentage of manufactured exports is one of the lowest in the region: On an average of 14% over the five late years.
In 2003, the GNI per capita attains $810 (Rank: 146 out of 208 countries). Taking in account the purchasing power parity method, the GNI per Capita reaches $3,210 (Rank: 141 out of 208). There is a large unequal development according islands end ethnics. Ethnic Chinese represent 3 % of the nation's population and hold about 70% of private wealth.
Due to the huge internal market and the cost of main power, our small investor's rating is *-. It could be downgraded in connection with new Islamic progress.
Business tourism: Bali, Lombok and the Sulawesi are far from Jakarta. For a short trip, favor Bali.
