Domestic consumption makes up a healthy 55% of the Indonesian economy, but the government wants investment and production to play a more significant role. To that end it wants consumers to change their buying habits so they turn first to local products. At the same time, said Trade Minister Thomas Lembong recently, consumers should pay much more attention to quality than they do. He said that last year the value of something called the Indonesian consumer empowerment index was only 34.17 out of 100. This is miserably low, apparently, and makes “users in Indonesia vulnerable to exploitation.”
