A number of events in Indonesia's business and economic sectors over the past few months have drawn public criticism and raised concerns regarding the risks of doing business in the country at present.
Recent developments in the Indonesian business and economic world in the last few months have sparked criticism and concern from experts and public alike. Along with rupiah’s declining value causing price hikes for multiple products and increased business costs, several cases, such as one faced by businessman Tom Lembong involving accusations of causing state loss due to a decision to import sugar, as well as one involving the purchase of chromebook laptops by former Education Minister Nadiem Makarim, who is also known as the founder of Gojek.
In his entry for the academic blog Indonesia at Melbourne, the founder of Northbound Strategies, Ryan Eka Permana Putra, who also worked for Gojek at one point, wrote that such cases and similar ones tend to be controversial, as within those cases, state employees were accused of engaging in corruption because they were said to cause state losses, even though there are no evidence of them benefiting financially from these losses.
The market and investors tend to move away from unpredictability, Ryan wrote, and uncertainties could be reflected in the very broad and vague definition of corruption, such that inefficient decisions might be considered a corrupt act, even though it did not involve bribes nor did it benefit the decision-makers personally.
While attending the ICON 2026 event held by the UNSW Indonesian Students’ Association in Australia (PPIA UNSW), SBS Indonesian spoke to Ivan Tandyo, CEO Navanti Holdings, who was born in Indonesia and began his business strides in Australia, and Yu Liu,co-founder of Heidi Health, which produces applications and other tools for the health industry, about their views of current risks in the Indonesian business landscape.
Listen to the full podcast.
