|
|
Geography, agriculture and the economy Located in the Indian Ocean and extending between the Asian mainland and Australia, Indonesia is made up of about 17,000 islands, of which only 6,000 are inhabited. The land area of this vast archipelago covers 1.9 million km² . The population is about 235 million and is growing at a rate of 1.6 per cent per year. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country. It also has the largest Muslim population in the world. Agriculture and the economy Of all the countries in Asia hit by the financial crisis, Indonesia is the only one that has not bounced back to its previous level of economic growth, which stood at 7 to 8 per cent. After the crisis, economic growth has stagnated at about 4 per cent. As a result, finding work has become more difficult. Unemployment in 2002 was 9.1 per cent. The major employer in Indonesia is agriculture, which absorbs about 44 per cent of the workforce, while industry absorbs 19 per cent and services 37 per cent. Natural resource-based enterprises are also a major source of livelihood for rural people, along with off-farm income-generating activities. Agricultural productivity has decreased considerably as a result of the Asian financial crisis, and in some sub-sectors growth rates have not resumed. Real wages in agriculture have been stationary and are still below 1996 levels. Instead, wages in manufacturing and government service have been increasing. In 2003, Indonesia 's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was US$208.3 billion, and Gross National Income per capita was US$810. Agriculture accounted for 16.6 per cent of GDP in 2003. The agricultural growth rate fell by about half between 1993 and 2002, but has partly recovered, reaching 2.5 per cent in 2003. Source: IFAD |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
email this article