Indonesian Citizens Splurge on Overseas Shopping, Figures Are Staggering

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto revealed that payments for Indonesian tourists’ travel services abroad reached US$6.7 billion, or approximately Rp118.7 trillion (assuming an exchange rate of Rp17,719 per US dollar). The government sees an opportunity to attract some of this spending back into the country through the development of shopping tourism.

Airlangga said that foreign tourist visits to Indonesia continue to increase. According to him, shopping and culinary activities are an important part of tourist activities, so they need to be encouraged so that more tourist spending occurs domestically.

“Of course, in various destination countries, part of tourist activity is culinary and shopping. So this certainly needs to be encouraged so that they shop in Indonesia instead, and we hope that this can also utilise shopping tourism as a new growth engine. Because for the government, this is low-hanging fruit, and for retailers, the momentum already exists,” said Airlangga in his presentation while opening the Indonesia Retail Summit and Expo at Swissotel PIK, Jakarta, Wednesday (26/8/2026).

Airlangga then revealed the amount of money that Indonesian citizens still spend when travelling abroad.

“And we see that payments for tourist travel services abroad reached US$6.7 billion. So of course, if some of this could be pulled back for domestic spending, that would also be a good thing,” he said.

He assessed that the development of shopping tourism could become one of the new sources of growth for the Indonesian economy. Moreover, domestic consumption remains the main driver of the national economy.

“We see in the second quarter, consumption was still good at 5.06% growth, and consumption is still the main driver of the Indonesian economy, and this is an asset for Indonesia because 53.32% is its contribution to GDP,” he said.

He also said that the consumer confidence index remains above 100 and the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is above 50. These conditions are considered to show optimism about the economy in the second half of 2026.

“Then also the consumer confidence index is still above 100, and we also see several achievements including the manufacturing PMI which is above 50, showing our optimism for the second semester. In the first semester, our growth was 5.45%, and this is the highest growth in the last 13 years,” he explained.

Airlangga also encouraged the retail sector to continue supporting economic growth. The government is targeting economic growth at the end of the year towards 6% and 6% next year.

“With the 800 brands mentioned earlier by the Chairman of Hippindo, 500 of them are national brands. And we must give applause to national brands. National brands, national entrepreneurs, and not distributing franchises, that is the conclusion of this Retail Summit. So for that matter, we certainly continue to encourage so that we can push growth at the end of the year towards 6% and 6% next year. This is the main task, and I am confident that if the retail sector continues to drive our economic growth,” said Airlangga.