REGIONAL OFFICE FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC (OAP)

Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar

Indonesia – Economic Outlook and Policy Priorities

Indonesia is South East Asia’s largest economy, most populous country, and a G20 member. The country has responded with a comprehensive policy package to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but is facing another wave of infections. The IMF Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific hosted a country-based regional seminar with Jim Walsh, the IMF’s Senior Resident Representative in Indonesia. He provided an overview of current economic developments and the outlook, and further discuss longer-term policy priorities.

Agenda:

Speaker:

• James P. Walsh was an advisor in the Monetary and Capital Markets department before assigned to Indonesia, and has coordinating the department’s surveillance, program monitoring, and technical assistance work in the Western Hemisphere. He has led Financial Sector Stability Assessments for Azerbaijan and Algeria and was deputy chief for China. He has also led technical assistance missions on developing monetary policy frameworks and implementing macroprudential policy, and coordinated surveillance work in Asia and Latin America before his current assignment. Before moving to MCM, his responsibilities included surveillance and analytical work on emerging markets, most recently China and India. His analytical work has covered financial regulatory reform, macro-financial linkages, inflation, financing infrastructure investment, and systemic financial risks, and he was co-editor of a book on Asian financial systems. He also worked in the IMF’s policy design department, assessing the IMF’s surveillance of developing economies. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and a BA in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.