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Deregulation And Trade Liberalization: The Indonesia Reform Program, Scott Fausti, Rony Bishry

Economics Staff Paper Series

Beginning in the early 1980s, Indonesia embarked on the most comprehensive trade liberalization program in its history. The long-term goal of the reform program is to replace Indonesia's industrial development strategy of import substitution industrialization with one of export oriented industrial growth. The issues to be discussed in this paper are: 1) the historical context from which the current liberalization program evolved, 2) the recent reform measures implemented by the Indonesian government, 3) the pattern of liberalization with respect to the sequencing and speed of reforms, and 4) the successes and failures of the new trade regime.