Prabowo Claims His Decade-Old Economic Analysis Remains Unchallenged by Professors

President Prabowo Subianto has claimed that the economic analysis he wrote in a book more than a decade ago remains relevant today, stating that no economics professor has been able to refute it. He made the remarks while closing the Nahdlatul Ulama National Conference of Religious Scholars and Grand Conference 2026 at the Syaikhona Mohammad Cholil Islamic Institute in Bangkalan, Madura, on Tuesday, 23 June 2026. “I stated it in my book over ten years ago and it has not been refuted to this day. No economics professors have been able to challenge me, even though I am not an economics expert. But numbers are numbers, mathematics is mathematics,” Prabowo said, as quoted on Wednesday, 24 June 2026. The analysis concerns the large-scale outflow of national wealth abroad. He assessed that this phenomenon has been occurring for a long time and has impacted the Indonesian economy. “What I said more than a decade ago is that Indonesia’s national wealth is flowing out of the country. In more sophisticated terms, what is happening is a net outflow of national wealth,” he stated. Prabowo noted that his findings align with data published by the United Nations via UN Comtrade. In his presentation, he revealed that Indonesia recorded a potential profit of USD 436 billion over a 22-year period. Calculated over 42 years, the value reaches approximately USD 683 billion. “If our blood flows out every day, eventually the body collapses and dies. That is the condition of our republic’s wealth. Every year our wealth is taken abroad, yet we still stand, brothers and sisters,” Prabowo said. According to Prabowo, one of the main causes is the practice of underinvoicing, or reporting transaction values lower than the actual figures. He referenced data showing Indonesia suffered losses of up to USD 908 billion, equivalent to around Rp15,000 trillion, over a 34-year period. “It turns out, once again from the UN, what is happening is called underinvoicing or false reporting. The businessmen are lying,” Prabowo said.