Indonesia 20 years after the Asian financial crisis

Bold reforms taken after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis strengthened Indonesia’s ability to respond to external shocks, said Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani at the Asian Development Bank’s 50^th Annual Meeting in Yokohama, Japan, reports the Jakarta Post.

Indonesia was one of the countries most affected by the crisis, leading to an IMF bailout package totalling US$43bn to restore market confidence in the Indonesian rupiah. Following the crisis, Indonesia undertook massive reforms in the fiscal, monetary and financial sectors that transformed the central bank into an independent institution and introduced budget discipline and fiscal decentralisation.