M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Economists criticized Friday the target set by a strategic group for Indonesia's transformation into a developed nation in the next 20 years.
Economist Sri Adiningsih of Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University and Aviliani of Jakarta's University of Indonesia said the target was "unreasonable".
"The vision is just too ambitious. Even before the economic crisis hit us in the late 1990s, our economy never grew by 7 percent annually, so how can they expect our country to grow by more than 7 percent in the next 20 years?" Sri Adiningsih said.
A strategic group consisting of businesspeople, academics and government officials unveiled on Thursday a presentation titled Indonesian Vision 2030, which said Indonesia was expected to become one of the world's major powers, with a per capita gross domestic product of US$18,000, by 2030.
The group said that the feat could be achieved only if the country's economy grew by 7.26 annually, with an inflation rate of 4.95 percent and a population growth rate of 1.12 percent.
Adiningsih said that there would be numerous factors at play that would diminish the chances of the country growing by 7 percent annually.
"The country's economy has in recent years been susceptible to non-economic factors such as natural disasters and volatile political conditions," she said.
She said that the likelihood of achieving the target in the designated time would be small as Indonesia had to compete with other countries in Southeast Asia.
"Take Vietnam for example. It has managed to attract more investment than us," Adiningsih said, adding that Indonesia could consider itself successful only after it managed to catch up with Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.
Another economist, Aviliani of the University of Indonesia, said that using per capita income as an indicator of success was largely misleading.
"It's just figures that don't reflect the true conditions in the society and for developing countries per capita income is just a charade to conceal the level of poverty," Aviliani said.
She said that per capita income could be used as a gauge for people's welfare only in developed nations where redistribution of wealth prevailed.
"But here, the largest chunk of wealth is enjoyed by the rich," she said. Aviliani said rather than aiming for the unattainable, the government should focus on the problems at hand, such as poverty and unemployment.
She also said that the 2030 vision contained numerous contradictions. "The group expects that we will have high economic growth with low inflation. But we have learnt that both can not go hand in hand," she said.