Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto wrapped up his first year in office on Monday, marking a presidential term that sees Indonesia growing its global influence and keeping millions of schoolchildren fed.

Prabowo took his oath of office on Oct. 20, 2024, officially ending his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decade-long rule. It did not take long for Prabowo to put the budget-heavy free meal program in motion. Prabowo, a fluent English speaker, had traveled abroad back and forth to secure free trade agreements and show up at the UN General Assembly. The retired army general even set up a new sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, to achieve his goal of reaching 8 percent annual economic growth. Here is a recap of Prabowo's year one, assuming the top government job.

Feeding the School Kids

The free meal rollout was at the center of Prabowo’s presidential campaign as he tried to win Indonesians’ hearts after failing the election several times. Indonesia aims to provide free and nutritious meals for around 82 million schoolchildren, expectant mothers, and toddlers across the archipelago. Prabowo had repeatedly said that the program could be a giant job maker, even possibly adding around 3 percentage points to Indonesia’s growth. The government has set aside Rp 71 trillion (nearly $4.3 billion) in the state budget for this nationwide rollout for 2025 alone, although the Finance Ministry has flagged concerns over the sluggish spending.  The program has, unfortunately, seen thousands of schoolchildren falling sick. Even so, Prabowo claimed a 99.99 percent success rate for the program that had dished out around 1.4 billion trays of meals.

“Statistically, only about 0.0007 or 0.0008 percent of all meals led to poisoning cases. That means the program has a 99.99 percent success rate. How can anyone call something that’s 99.99 percent successful a failure? But we still don’t want a single child to be sick,” Prabowo recently said.

‘Friends to All’ Indonesia Joins BRICS 
In his foreign diplomacy, Prabowo is known for his approach that having “a thousand friends is too few, one enemy is too many”. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy made international headlines early this year when the China-led BRICS officially brought Indonesia into its fold. Indonesia is eyeing membership at the BRICS-sponsored New Development Bank (NDB), a multinational lender that could unlock financing for its priority programs. BRICS encompasses Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and finally, Indonesia.

Danantara: Indonesia’s New Investment Magnet
In late February, Prabowo launched Danantara as the country’s new investment magnet. Danantara quickly took over all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under its management, thus growing into a one-trillion-dollar fund by assets. Indonesia claims that Danantara is the world’s fifth-largest sovereign fund at present. Plans are underway to trim the number of Indonesian SOEs from the current 1,000 to a rational figure of 240 firms for better efficiency.  Most recently, Prabowo decided to let foreign professionals assume leadership roles in its state firms, with two non-Indonesians joining the flag carrier Garuda’s top brass. The fund has struck deals with foreign institutions, including setting up a $4 billion joint fund with the Qatar Investment Authority.

Indonesia is on track to reach its full-year target for realized investments. Government data showed that Indonesia had amassed around Rp 1.4 quadrillion ($84.4 billion) between January and September, and more than half of it had come from domestic investors. The statistics did not include investment pledges, but the actual amount of money that investors had spent. Indonesia aims to amass Rp 1.9 quadrillion in realized investments throughout 2025.

New Trade Deals Amidst Trump Tariff Assault
In early April, US President Donald Trump shocked the world by launching a tariff campaign on nearly all trading partners, including Indonesia. Prabowo managed to eventually convince Trump -- whom he called a “tough negotiator” -- to drop the planned tariff hikes from 32 percent to 19 percent. Indonesia, however, had to do some things in return, including letting American goods enter its market at zero tariff.

In his first year, Prabowo has traveled abroad 15 times for state trips that spanned 24 countries, including Canada, Russia, and the European Union or EU’s headquarters in Brussels. He rarely came home empty-handed. Just last month, Indonesia officially became the first ASEAN member to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) with Canada. Under Prabowo’s presidency, Indonesia managed to sign the substantive conclusion of its negotiations with the EU after almost a decade. The Indonesia-EU CEPA is set to enter into force in early 2027. Prabowo had also invited his ousted Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte to Jakarta in August to sign a bilateral free trade pact whose negotiations only took 14 months to finish.

Goodbye Sri Mulyani, Hello Purbaya
Prabowo’s biggest economic moves included replacing the respected Finance Minister Sri Mulyani when his term was about to enter its 11th month. In late August, economic inequalities and police brutality had prompted countless Indonesians to take to the streets. Prabowo decided to appoint Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, who used to lead the deposit insurance agency LPS, as his new finance chief. The straightforward minister quickly injected Rp 200 trillion or $12 billion of government funds once parked at Bank Indonesia to state lenders in a bid to jump-start lending. Purbaya has no plans of transferring the funds to private lenders, but the minister is eyeing making similar liquidity injections to regional banks.

UN Debut and Palestine Diplomacy
The year also saw Prabowo stepping up to the podium of the UN General Assembly. It was also the first time in a decade for an Indonesian leader to attend the highly anticipated conference in person. Palestinian independence was high on the agenda for a meeting that saw Jakarta repeating its calls for the two-state solution. This is an internationally recognized mantra that pushes for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside that of Israel. Indonesia is also open to forming diplomatic ties with Israel, but only after the latter recognizes Palestinian statehood. Jakarta once again offered to send peacekeeping troops to the war-struck Gaza, and expressed intentions of supplying rice to Palestinians.

“The only solution is the two-state solution. Two descendants of Abraham must live in reconciliation, peace, and harmony. Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, all religions, we must live as one human family," Prabowo said as he continued to pound on the UN podium -- a habit that had caught Trump’s attention.

“Is this a dream? Maybe. But this is the beautiful dream that we must work together towards.” 

Just last week, Prabowo joined the Sharm El-Sheikh summit that saw the signing of a Gaza peace deal between mediators the US, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

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