Regions

As a nation of 245m people, spread over three time zones and about 17,500 islands, Indonesia has always been a country of great diversity – economically, politically, culturally and ethnically. Since the return to democracy, this diversity has been increasingly recognised, with a policy of decentralisation handing more power to the regions. Redressing old imbalances between the centre and the outlying areas has taken on greater importance in recent times as well, with the government’s latest development plan based on six geographically defined economic corridors. Thus, Indonesia is very much a country of regions, with major implications for investors, foreign and local, given this decentralised approach. Now that the political agenda has given rise to an economic one, efforts to spread wealth around the nation are driven by the regions and by the central government. This chapter contains an interview with Oesman Sapta, Founder, OSO Group.