Those who experienced China at the end of the 90s and the 2000s remember the feeling of unbridled hope and optimism brought by the opening up of what was going to become the second largest economy in the world. The economy was booming, foreign companies, expats and foreign student were flocking to Beijing and Shanghai on every B747 flying to China every day, the Olympics and World Expo were coming to China… It was THE place to be if you were looking for an active career start.
Twenty years later, it all happened in China, and THE place to be to capture the opportunities brough by a flourishing young economy has moved away. South to be precise, in South-East Asia. In the region, Indonesia specifically stands out as a happening economy, managing to overcome the challenges of a large, fragmented country and population like China did (albeit in a different way), and get moving in a direction most of the country seems to agree with: digitization of the society so the entirety of the 280 million Indonesians on 18,000 islands have the same opportunities.
Add in factors such as a very young population – over 25% of Indonesians are under 18 – and a functioning democracy that managed to squarely elevate the country to the “upper middle-income” category as defined by the World Bank in July 2023, and you have a very attractive society and economy of international investors, company and people seeking growth.
Source: French Tech Indonesia
As China did in the 2000s, Indonesia needs to rely on foreign technology to build the infrastructure and achieve its goals for a digital society. In a conference organized by the French Tech Indonesia the ministry of Education discussed how relying on technology and partnerships with companies like Microsoft and their tools was crucial to bring education to all corners of Indonesia as “education should go to students where they are, not the other way around”.
In a predictable twist of shifting places to be, Chinese companies are now investing heavily in Indonesia, helping to build IT infrastructure, logistics infrastructures in the form of high speed railways and ports, and bringing consumer tech and cars, manufactured in Indonesia by Chinese companies. Oppo boasts of 65 million active users in Indonesia, and Wuling manufactures electric cars in Indonesia that now account for 78% of all electric cars on the road in the country (China Daily).
Influence Matters has made a specialty of building bridges from innovators moving into a new country and helping bring solutions to a new challenging market. We focused on China for the past 8 years, where we helped Lidar companies connect with Chinese car OEMs, machine vision companies meet mobile OEMs and factory designers, fintech companies work with Chinese merchants or HRtech providers grow their business with companies based in China.
With our office in Indonesia, we now bring this expertise to THE place to be for the next 20 years. That place extends beyond the borders of Indonesia to the whole SEA region. We look forward to continuing our mission of breaking the barriers of innovation and supporting more innovators succeed across borders.
