Indonesia's Finance Minister Crowned Asia's Best Finance Minister for the 2nd Time. This is Why

After being awarded Best Minister just two months ago, Sri Mulyani Indrawati has bagged another award as Finance Minister of 2018 by Hong Kong-based publication FinanceAsia for the second consecutive year.

According to FinanceAsia, Sri Mulyani succeeded to take Indonesia's economy to a positive path and managed to maximize the opportunity of the global economic progress to reform Indonesia’s financial structure in 2017.

FinanceAsia applauded Sri Mulyani’s “laser-like focus” on increasing tax revenue, which distinguished her from her counterparts across Asia. Her focus on increasing tax revenue was aimed at reducing dependency on commodity sales that often fluctuate depending on global prices.

To do so, Sri Mulyani targeted wealthy Indonesians to pay up their unpaid taxes. Under her orders, the Directorate General of Taxation intensified legal enforcement through the infamous gijzeling policy, where the government took tax avoiders hostage until they paid their taxes.

Furthermore, Indonesia hit a milestone as the country’s GDP in 2017 hit the $1 trillion mark for the first time while inflation and exchange rates remained stable.

Based on FinanceAsia’s study, Sri Mulyani beat counterparts such Singapore’s Heng Swee Keat, who ranked second; the Philippine’s Carlos Dominguez, ranked third; India’s Arun Jaitley in fourth place and China’s outgoing finance minister Xiao Je in fifth place.

Source : Tempo.co | TheJakartapost.com | FinanceAsia.com