Indonesia’s Prabowo pitches stability at Davos amid rising global tensions

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has used his Davos debut to drive home a message to global investors that his country intends to stamp out corruption and “greedanomics”, while positioning itself as a rare pocket of stability in an unsettled world economy.Speaking during a special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Thursday, Prabowo argued that trade integration, if conducted fairly, should not be seen as a threat to sovereignty but as a tool for shared prosperity.Making his first appearance at the forum as Indonesian president, Prabowo said his country’s economy grew at more than 5 per cent every year over the past decade and that this year’s growth would be even higher.“The IMF [International Monetary Fund] recently described Indonesia as a global bright spot with strong economic growth amid a challenging external environment,” he said.Prabowo pointed to inflation around 2 per cent and a budget deficit kept below 3 per cent of gross domestic product, saying the country’s resilience reflected policy discipline and credibility built over time.Customers shop for clothes at a shopping centre in Jakarta on Tuesday. Indonesia has been described as a “global bright spot with strong economic growth”, according to President Prabowo Subianto. Photo: EPADescribing the world as being in a period of global uncertainty, when trust between nations, institutions and people was fragile, Prabowo said Indonesia’s policies “have been and will always be well calibrated”.