4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Indonesia’s president has now been in power for a year but having won the election on policies to support the lower classes, the economy is struggling. That struggle led to violent protests across the country making global headlines.
We speak to businesses, young people and families about the changes they’ve seen in the past year and discuss whether the new government can fulfil their economic pledges.
Presenter: Sam Fenwick Producer: Hannah Mullane
(Image: Students eat food supplied by the Indonesian government's free meal programme at an elementary school in Darul Kamal, Aceh province on 13 October 2025. Credit: Getty Images)
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.5 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm Sam Fennick. |
| 0:12.0 | Twelve months ago, Indonesia swore in a new president. |
| 0:14.8 | There were big promises from free school meals to faster economic growth. But one year on, |
| 0:28.8 | tensions have reached boiling point. Demonstrators flooded streets across the country, |
| 0:34.3 | protesting over rising costs and shrinking opportunities. |
| 0:38.4 | Salaries of teachers have been cut, salaries of civil servants have been cut, certain research |
| 0:43.1 | programs have been cut. And that has created a little bit of dissent, unhappiness, amongst |
| 0:49.1 | many different groups of people. Today on Business Daily, we look at how those populist policies are playing out for ordinary |
| 0:56.6 | Indonesians, for businesses and for the future of Southeast Asia's largest economy. |
| 1:03.0 | And now we're on our way to the store. |
| 1:11.9 | So this is where the trip store is. |
| 1:18.1 | Meet Vanya Mulyadi. |
| 1:19.7 | She's showing me around the shop she runs with her dad in the centre of Jakarta, Indonesia's largest city. |
| 1:26.1 | They first opened their doors 25 years ago. |
| 1:29.1 | Back then, it was all about women's fashion. |
| 1:31.9 | But over time, they started to add backpacks and suitcases, and the business grew with them. |
| 1:37.9 | So we started to sell the small one, and people would be like, oh, this is like a very good quality. |
| 1:44.1 | And I want a bigger one |
| 1:45.4 | because I want to travel like longer and then we start to order more, more, more and then |
| 1:50.8 | they keep coming back as a repeat customer. Our store is at the old market. So most of the |
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