Comments and Opinion

Number of Indonesia’s Rich Growing, but Poverty Remains: Analyst

The growth rate of the number of rich people in Indonesia is accelerating, according to economic observer Cyrillus Harinowo Hadiwerdoyo.

At a seminar on Monday at the Banjarmasin branch of Bank Indonesia, Harinowo said that between 2010 and 2011, the number of wealthy Indonesians grew from 30 million to 36 million. He predicted that by 2015, the number would rise to 60 million.

Indonesia’s middle class has also grown from 131 million in 2010 to 140 million today, according to Harinowo.

Despite the recent growth in the Indonesian economy, Harinowo noted, a significant portion of the population still lives in poverty. According to the World Bank, there are just over 30 million people living under the poverty line today.

He noted fast growth in the automotive industry, citing Toyota, Suzuki, Ford and Daihatsu as manufacturers with planned expansions in production capacity. He suggested that these plans are indicative of good prospects and strong economic growth for the country, and representative of a larger trend: Indonesia has become a good market for high technology and farm products.

He referred as well to General Motors’ plan to build a factory in Bekasi, announced last year.

“Many international companies such as Starbucks have closed down their outlets, but in Indonesia the number of Starbucks outlets has continued to increase—now reaching 120 units,” Harinowo said.

sumber : http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/number-of-indonesias-rich-growing-but-poverty-remains-analyst/

Comments and Opinion :

When the number of the rich and middle class in Indonesia increased, the level of poverty in Indonesia should decrease. Often happens in Indonesia is rich become richer, the poor become poorer. The government should pay attention to it. Because, from poverty can lead to other problems.

Poverty is influenced by several factors, such as low education, low labor productivity, lack of jobs, inflation, low income, a lot of corruption, and others.

Some ways that the government can do are creating jobs that can reducing unemployment, maintain the stability of prices of basic commodities, provide the scholarships for poor students, referral health services for poor families, provide training so people can have skills, facilitating Small Medium Enterprises in order to increase revenue through better facilities and can recruit other people for hired, improve the infrastructure so that access to other places could be easier and cheaper, and reduce the amount of corruption .