RI's population to surpass 300 million mark in 2050: PRB

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

With a projected population of more than 300 million by 2050, Indonesia will have an Herculean task providing health care, education, housing and drinking water to its people in the future, a government agency warned on Friday.

The population of Indonesia is predicted to grow by 41 percent; mostly in already-congested urban areas; from the present estimated 218.7 million people, to 308.5 million by 2050, the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) said on Tuesday. The government's 2003 census figures put Indonesia's population at 217 million.

The study says no country is expected to challenge Indonesia's status as the fourth most-populous nation in the world after India, China and the United States for at least the next 46 years.

The National Family Planning Coordination Board (BKKBN) said such predictions served as a warning for the Indonesian government to do more to control the country's rapid population growth.

"This is a serious warning. We need to take strong action to implement the family planning program, otherwise there will (continue to) be a baby boom in this country," Lalu Sudarmadi, the secretary of the BKKBN told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Lalu said even with its current population, the government already faced serious difficulties providing health, education, housing and other public services to its people.

He also expressed regret about the lack of commitment of some local governments to implementing the national family planning program, a situation that arose after they were granted regional autonomy.

Lalu said Indonesia must try to lower its national fertility rate from the current 2.6 percent to about 2.1 percent by 2015.

The total fertility rate is the national average of the number of children born to a woman during her lifetime.

He said that with a fertility rate of 2.1 percent, the country's population would reach 250.1 million in 2015 and about 293.7 million by 2050.

The PRB report says the world's population is expected to grow at an even quicker pace, from 6.4 billion people today to about 9.3 billion in 2050, a 45 percent increase.

It said that many of the industrialized nations are likely to experience population decline by 2050 due to low birth rates and struggling economies but that immigration to some of these countries was likely to increase.

Because of this, the United States is biggest exception among industrialized nations, with its population forecast to rise by 43 percent from the present 293 million to 420 million at mid- century.

The population of Japan, meanwhile, the world's second richest country, was projected to shrink by 21 percent, from 127.6 million people to 100.6 million in 2050.

The report said that most of the world's population growth would come from developing and less-developed countries, even though these generally have much higher rates of HIV/AIDS and infant mortality.

Asia will continue being the world's most populous continent as its population would rise to nearly 5.4 billion people by 2050, a 39-percent growth, the PRB said.

The report said India was projected to surpass China and become the world's most populous country by 2050.

It said that India's population would reach more than 1.6 billion in 2050, or an increase by 50 percent from its current 1 billion people.

China, meanwhile, would grow from 1.3 billion people to more than 1.4 billion in 2050, an 11 percent increase.