Indonesia As the New India
This stable democracy with a hot market economy resembles another Asian giant in the 1990s.
George Wehrfritz
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 20, 2008
Jakarta today could be any of Asia’s 21st-century boomtowns. The malls buzz, traffic snarls and modern office towers dominate the skyline. It all feels profoundly normal—but that’s big progress in a place that, barely ten years ago, seemed destined for ruin. Following the fall of longtime strongman Suharto, and with Indonesia reeling from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, many analysts feared that Asia’s third-biggest country (population: 235 million) would go the way of Yugoslavia. Instead, it has become a cohesive, robust and exuberantly democratic moderate Muslim nation. Things are so buoyant that Indonesia invites comparison to another Asian giant: India. Read the rest of this entry »
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Mustaqim Adamrah , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 10/06/2008 9:58 AM | Business
Several local firms will conduct tests on Indonesian-brand vehicles before launching the models to tap the country’s car market, which is dominated by Japanese firms.
State-owned train manufacturer PT Industri Kereta Api (Inka) will produce a car under brand name Gea (a girl’s name in Indonesia), while Semarang State University (Unnes) is teaming up with local administrations to manufacture a car model named Arina.
An unnamed Serang-based company will also join in the race by producing a car called Tawon, which means “bee” in local dialect. Read the rest of this entry »
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