Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto recently asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help Indonesia train more doctors so the country can have enough physicians to treat its people.

Speaking with the Indian politician on the margins of the G20 Summit in Brazil, Prabowo said that Jakarta was open to strengthening health cooperation with New Delhi. This includes having Indian doctors teach at Indonesian medical schools.

“We hope we can increase the number of Indonesian students going to your institutes in India. [We wish to] invite Indian professors to teach [in our universities] because we have a shortage of 160,000 doctors,” Prabowo said.

According to Prabowo, only 8,000 medical students graduate in Indonesia each year, far from enough to close the gap. He added: “I plan to open more medical colleges. Perhaps India [can] send specialists to teach [in Indonesia].”

This was not the first time for Prabowo to try to address Indonesia’s doctor shortage in his international trips. Prabowo did the same with Russian leader Vladimir Putin when he visited Moscow earlier this year as president-elect. Prabowo at the time told Putin that he would prepare a massive scholarship program to send Indonesian youth to study medicine abroad, including to Russia.

During his talks with Modi, Prabowo talked of how Indonesia is open to foreign hospitals’ operations, particularly in special economic zones (SEZs) -- namely specifically designated areas in which investors can get corporate income tax deductions, among others.

“We are opening up our health sector, and for foreign hospitals to have local branches in Indonesia,” Prabowo said.

Parts of the meeting shown to the public did not show Modi’s response to Prabowo’s offers. However, Indian multinational healthcare group Apollo Hospitals has already agreed to invest in the Batam Health Tourism SEZ. The project is set to enter operations in 2026. Government data shows Indonesia attracted nearly $154 million in foreign direct investment from India in January-September 2024.