Indonesia again becomes upper-middle income country: Jokowi
Jakarta, The Gulf Observer: President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) stated that the World Bank has again categorized Indonesia as a country with upper-middle income.
“This is a rapid recovery process after we were relegated to the lower-middle income countries’ group due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,” the president said while opening the cabinet’s plenary session at the State Palace, Jakarta, on Monday.
Despite the current positive trend, the president reiterated that the country would face a challenging situation in the second quarter of 2023 due to the ongoing global environmental instability and geopolitical tensions.
“This situation affects economic growth, weakens trading activities, and we can see that our exports are in decline. Therefore, we should pay close attention to a number of international institutions’ predictions on the global economic slowdown,” he noted.
Furthermore, Jokowi pointed out that the movements of interest rates and global inflation are still stuck at a quite high level. The president also alluded to the fragmentation of global trades that hinders multilateral cooperation.
The head of state noted that the current global economic situation gives an early warning to countries to keep a close eye on the consumption and production of certain commodities.
He then encouraged the Indonesian nation to be grateful, as the country’s economic growth has been steadily at above five percent for six consecutive quarters.
“We should be grateful that our economic growth is stuck at above five percent, a relatively high level, for six consecutive quarters,” the president said.
The World Bank has issued a classification that groups countries into four categories based on their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, which is renewed every July according to the latest rate of the US dollar.
Currently, based on the income from July 2023 to June 2024, countries are grouped into low income (US$1,135), lower-middle income (US$1,136-4,465), upper-middle income (US$4,446-13,845), and high income (above US$13,845).
