businesstraveller.com OCTOBER 2017
INDONESIA IN NUMBERS
18,307
Number of islands that the
country comprises
(about 6,000 inhabited)
742
Approximate number
of local languages
spoken
102 million
Number of internet users in 2016
Sources: PwC, BBC, World Bank, UKTI Indonesia, Boston Consulting Group
1
World ranking in
terms of Muslim
population
(87% of 261
million people)
3
World ranking
in terms of size
of democracy
88
million
Approximate number of
middle class people
55
million
Skilled workers today
130
million
Projected number of
skilled workers by 2025
16
World
ranking for
Indonesia’s
economy
today
4
Projected
world ranking
for Indonesia’s
economy in
2050
5.8
Percentage the
economy has
grown year-on-
year over the
past decade
91
World
ranking
for ease
of doing
business
2004
First-ever
presidential
elections
60 Percentage of people under the age of 30
141
million
Number of middle class
people predicted in 2020
Business in... Jakarta I 31
US$560 million Terminal 3 opened at Jakarta Soekarno-
Hatta airport. It is initially being used for domestic
flights, but once running smoothly, international
services will move over. Kumar says: “Not a lot of
leisure travel comes into the city. It has little to offer
- at the weekends locals are in Singapore. On Friday
evenings, flights are full.”
An express rail link to downtown is coming this year
and a third runway is being developed. By next year, the
hub will be able to handle 62 million passengers annually.
With a population of 12 million people, Jakarta is a
sprawling mega city with no discernible boundary, and
little in the way of pedestrian-friendly zones. There
is Chinatown, with its dank alleyways, market stalls
selling nets of live frogs and crabs, and the charred,
smoky Dharma Bhakti Temple (it caught fire last year
but still has a forest of man-high candles burning
inside). And there are car-free Sundays on Sudirman
and Thamrin roads.
The old Dutch colonial area of Kota Tua, once the
heart of Batavia, was the capital city of the Dutch East
Indies. Up until 1942, when the Japanese took control,
it formed a key trading centre with Asia, which saw
spices, tobacco, sugar, opium, coffee and tea flow in
and out with the help of a network of canals.