Prabowo summons officials from the SBY era to glean lessons on handling economic crises

President Prabowo Subianto summoned a number of officials who served during the tenure of Indonesia’s fifth President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), who is also a prominent economist, to the Istana in Jakarta on Friday, 22 May 2026. He invited them to listen to their experiences during several crises they faced in office. Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said the officials shared their experiences regarding the economic crises that occurred in the period 2004-2014. ‘In the meeting earlier, they described several lessons from facing the crisis in 2008. Coincidentally, they mostly worked during the 2004-2014 period,’ Airlangga said after accompanying Prabowo at the Istana. They were joined by Sudrajat, the former Indonesian Ambassador to China (2005–2009), and Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo, the former Deputy Minister of National Development Planning (2010-2014). According to Airlangga, the figures also noted observations from their time in government. ‘They said that in the past our inflation ran around 17 percent and there was also a change in exchange rates following the oil crisis in 2005, when oil prices rose to as high as $140 a barrel; at that time price adjustments pushed inflation up to 27 percent,’ he said. ‘The fundamentals were stronger, and the rupiah depreciation was about 5 percent, thus much lower than in many previous cases. From that, we can learn how to anticipate and what is needed to face future situations,’ Airlangga added. Airlangga said President Prabowo Subianto also asked the relevant ministers to monitor regulations to strengthen the financial position. ‘And also to safeguard the prudential standards of our banking sector. We have many banks, and perhaps we need to review how their capitalization can be strengthened,’ he added. Separately, Burhanuddin, the former Governor of Bank Indonesia, said he had discussions with President Prabowo about his experiences in the past. He hopes his experiences can serve as lessons for the current conditions. However, he denied that the discussions focused on the rupiah exchange rate. In the meeting, he said he did propose some suggestions to President Prabowo, but he did not elaborate. ‘There were general things I proposed,’ he said, ‘but the President asked the Finance Minister to consider those ideas for the future,’ he added.