Asia: Taxing times for Indonesia’s new finance minister

Technocrat Bambang Brodjonegoro has plans to turn the country’s state-owned enterprises into regional, if not global, leaders. But the fall in the oil price could quickly scupper his ambitions, unless he can improve Indonesia’s terrible record on tax collection.

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Indonesia’s new finance minister Bambang Brodjonegoro

When Indonesia’s man-of-the-people president Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi to his millions of followers, swept to power on a populist wave last year, things looked pretty rosy for him and for Indonesia.

Oil was tracking just shy of $100 a barrel, good news for Asia’s only Opec member, while the global prices of the other commodities Indonesia had come to rely on – coal, palm oil, tin, LNG – were holding close to historic highs.

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