The Indonesian government's recent decision to jack up the fuel prices here in Indonesia was met with some isolated but fierce demonstrations. Isolated because many of them were one off and have yet to be repeated. This tends to give the impression that in most cases the demonstrators were of the rent-a-crowd variety.Nevertheless, the reduction of the fuel subsidies is going to have a significant impact on the great number of Indonesians living on or under the poverty line. Estimates put this figure at somewhere near 40 million people. The jacking up of the fuel prices is going to impact on the middle and upper classes as there is likely to be fuel-based inflation in prices of most goods. Yet, the impact will be minor compared to others.
In any event this got me to thinking. Australians, at least Sydney-siders, are now paying record prices for fuel at the pump. The price last night in Sydney has reached 171.9 cents a litre. When I left my homeland the price of fuel at the pump was under AUD 1. How times have changed!
The thinking part comes on this point though. Indonesians are now paying around IDR 6,000 a litre for fuel. Considering they were paying IDR 2,500 a couple of years ago this is a significant hike. Nevertheless, if the 171.9 cents per litre is converted to IDR, then Australians are paying the equivalent of about IDR 16,000 per litre. Indonesians have still got it good in that sense.
