Recent Economic Trends in Indonesia

Extract

During the 1970 decade the Indonesian economy grew at unprecedented high rates after a long period of relative stagnation. It is commonly assumed that this significant improvement in growth performance is largely explained by the rapid growth of oil exports from 1971 to 1978, during which period petroleum's share in total export earnings rose from 39 per cent to 64 per cent. During this period, petroleum exports (in dollar value) rose at an average annual rate of 43 per cent, compared to 30 per cent for non-petroleum exports. Thus, even during the period of rapid petroleum export earnings growth, other exports also grew at a rate far above their long-term trend.