Implications for Indonesia of Asia’s Rise in the Global Economy

This paper projects Indonesia’s production and trade patterns to 2020 and 2030 in the course of global economic development under various growth and policy scenarios. We employ the GTAP model and Version 8.1 of the GTAP database, along with supplementary data from a range of sources to support projections of the global economy. The baseline projection assumes trade-related policies do not change in each region but that endowments and real GDP do change, at exogenously selected rates. This enables us to analyse how potential global changes may impact the Indonesian economy over this and the next decade. We then consider the impacts of three potential policy reforms by 2020: an increase in global rice exports, as might be associated with the opening of Myanmar; Indonesia’s recently-imposed export taxes on unprocessed primary products; and implementation of Indonesia’s new Food Law.