UNAIR NEWS聽– Indonesia has long been known as a聽middle income country聽where the majority of the population has middle income.聽It makes Indonesia feels overshadowed by the聽middle income trap聽due to the country’s failure to move up from middle-low to upper-middle income.聽Although in the past year Indonesia has been categorized as an聽upper-middle income country,聽the pandemic situation has made the economic progress of Indonesian people even more threatened.
However, a different view came from聽UNAIR ,听., Ph.D.聽According to him, the pandemic situation actually benefits the innovation climate and creative economy for those smart and innovative individuals.
鈥淧andemic is a tremendous intervening variable. Moreover, it is followed by the composition of the productive age of our society which is more than 60%. This period is the right time to develop the creative economy, “said the youngest UNAIR Professor.
However, according to Prof.聽Badri, the 23 years of experience of Indonesia to get out of the聽lower-middle income trap is聽caused by low innovation and creative economy.聽Indonesia has a high productive age, however, the competitiveness of the workforce has decreased from year to year, especially with the vulnerability of 90% of the composition of Indonesia’s population who are in the聽middle income聽class.
Furthermore, jobs of productive age in Indonesia are still concentrated in office work and conventional jobs. The title of Indonesia as one of the largest internet user countries with 150 million users has never really been used as an economic opportunity.
To overcome this, Prof.聽Badri believes in the term聽creativity is the new economy.聽Today’s economic orientation should no longer rely on natural resources, but creativity and聽added value.聽So Indonesia needs to carry out economic transformation by utilizing innovation, creativity and digitalization.
“So if now there are many young people aspiring to establish聽their聽own聽start-up, it is one of the right steps.聽Startups can be a solution for countries experiencing a聽middle income trap,鈥 he explained in a Creative Economy Network webinar held by UNAIR Postgraduate School on Thursday, January 14, 2021.
Reflecting on Singapore and Luxembourg which have high creative class rankings, it turns out that they were able to encourage improvement of the people’s economy through the creative economy and聽start-ups.聽“Indonesia is still ranked 86th with only 7.95% proposition of the creative economy working class,” he added.
Prof. Badri then gave an example of how Indonesia’s top start-up like Go-Jek was not only able to earn fantastic income, but also created jobs for more than 4 million partners of the decacorn start-up.
鈥淪uper creative cores聽such as Go-Jek, Grab, Google, Pixar, and others are examples that聽start-ups聽can bring tremendous economic progress.聽The聽start-ups聽growth rate聽will be linear with economic growth and people’s income, 鈥漵aid the Director of UNAIR Postgraduate School.
Until now, Indonesia has recorded more than 2000 start-up companies. This development made Prof. Badri believes that in the future Indonesia’s creative economy will be even more diverse, although until now the majority is still focused on the food and beverage sector.
Author: Intang Arifia
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
