Although the IT startups make significant actions, in general, IT condition in Indonesia is quite bad in the International perception. On the list of IT Industry Competitiveness Index 2011 arranged by Business Software alliance (BSA), Indonesia is on the 57th from 66 countries (increased only 2 rank from the previous year). In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is in the bottom position “being beat” by Philippines and Vietnam.
As a comparison, Singapore is on the 3rd position (increased 6 rank from last year), Malaysia is on the 31st position (increased 11 rank from the last year), Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam are on the 50th, 52nd, and 53rd. Indonesia is only higher than other developing countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The lowest rank is for Iran and the highest is, of course, The USA.
Being available since 2007, IT Industry Competitiveness Index compares the countries in several regions for their preparation to support the strong IT development. There are six factors measured such as business environment in general, IT infrastructure, human resource, law ecosystem, research ecosystem, and the support for IT industry. From all the aspects, R&D ecosystem has the highest proportion. You may learn the measurement method here.
The weaknesses of Indonesia are mostly in the infrastructure and research ecosystem. The point for this aspect is only 0.1. It means that the IT research is just a few. The “adequate” point for Indonesia is the Human Capital. In this aspect, Indonesia gets a little better point from Malaysia. However, it is not enough to make Indonesia be rising star as Malaysia that increased for 11 rank from the previous year because of the point gotten from the R&D is very high (43.9).
There are many homework should be done by the regulator, business player, and research maker to increase the competitiveness in IT, at least in Southeast Asia. Are you still wondering why the big IT companies prefer to choose our neighboring country to invest?
These trade agreements are widely expected to help boost relations between Indonesiaand the U.S. and continue Indonesia’s growth trajectory (also see One Year Later: Top Ten Performing ETFs Since The Market Bottom). .