Lecture Abstract:

Indonesia is a land of contradictions. As a country with more than 17 000 islands, Indonesia was born as a free trader. Yet, Indonesian politicians and media are constantly reluctant to accept globalization. Amidst the deep unpopularity and mistrust in the current international institutions and architecture, particularly the IMF, due to the excessive IMF’s conditionality programme during the Asian Financial Crisis back in 1998, the Indonesian economy has remained broadly open over this period and even becoming more active in international economic diplomacy, particularly in the last seven years. The pendulum continues to swing from one to the other extreme. This phenomenon leads to questions of why the policy towards engagement with the global economy change over time. This talk will elucidate on Indonesia’s role in global and trade agreements and examine what the factors are behind it.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Muhamad Chatib Basri, is Indonesia’s former Minister of Finance and was a Chairman of Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Mandiri Institute and Chairman of The Indonesia Infrastructure Finance. Dr Basri teaches at the Department of Economics, University Indonesia. He is Thee Kian Wie Visiting Professor at the Australian National University (2016-2017). He was Ash Centre Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School (2015-2016), Pacific Fellow at the Centre on Global Transformation University of California San Diego (2016). He co-founded CReco Research Institute, a Jakarta based economic consulting firm in 2010. Dr. Basri was a member of the Asia Pacific Regional Advisory Group of the IMF. He was also a member of  the High Level Trade Experts Group co-chaired by Jagdish Bhagwati and Peter Sutherland. He earned his PhD in Economics from the Australian National University.He has acted as a consultant for the World Bank, the IMF,  the ADB, the USAID, AUSAID, OECD and UNCTAD.