New World Order - Indonesia

Population: 237 million

Area: 1.9 million km²

GDP: $ 1 trillion

GDP (per capita): $ 4,700

Economic Growth: 6.4%

Democracy? Yes

Despite being the fourth largest country in the world, when most people think of a new world order, they don’t think of Indonesia. Although it will never become a global superpower, I do believe it will one day challenge the Wests dominance.

One of Indonesia’s biggest disadvantages is how dispersed it is, it is made up of over 17,000 islands although over half (133 million) live on the island of Java. This still leaves 100 million people on other islands. This hampers Indonesia as it makes travelling within Indonesia difficult as a boat or plane must always be used. Although this could have its advantages, shipping by boat is still the most popular way to transport goods, by the nature of having many islands; no part of Indonesia is too far from the coast.

One way this could at least by partially remedied is by a series of tunnels or bridges. A bridge is already currently being constructed between the country’s two most populous islands, Java and Sumatra. It wouldn’t be unthinkable either to link Bali to Java or Sumatra to Malaysia. The latter would thus connect the capital Jakarta to the continent of Asia. Bridges or tunnels would be attractive in the above situations, but may not extend to some of Indonesia’s other large islands such as Borneo, Sulawesi or New Guinea. Here it may prove too expensive or even impossible to link these islands to the more populous southern islands.

Below is a map of Indonesia, the red islands on the map are islands that have a population greater than one million. Pink represents another country.

Indonesia’s growing economy can be seen by some recent events. Until 2009 Indonesia was a member of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), it had to leave the group in 2009 because domestic demand was so high that it was no longer a net oil exporter. Oil is a good measure of the wealth of a nation as it is necessary for all major industries; the more oil a country requires, the more industry and wealth a country has.

Yet like all the other developing nations poverty is still a major issue in Indonesia, at only $4,700 GDP per capita, Indonesia is still in the rank of poor nations.

Jakarta - the Capital of Indonesia