Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – Sharia Economist Director of IDEAS (Indonesia Development and Islamic Studies) Yusuf Wibisono believes that the G20 Indonesia Presidency is the right place to take various initiatives to develop sharia economy and finance.
“Especially with his position as the presidency, we can see more opportunities in Indonesia, can take initiatives, collaborate and various things,” Yusuf said when contacted by ANTARA in Jakarta, Monday.
Yusuf said that the potential income and market for the Islamic economy in Indonesia is very large, especially with the largest Muslim population in the world, which reaches 220 million people. In addition, the sharia lifestyle is also growing among young people.
“When we talk about potential, we are the biggest, but if we only have potential forever, we will not be able to see the results. This needs to be taken seriously, needs to be exploited and developed,” he said.
However, he believes that the availability of halal products at the global level is still very limited, thus hampering the development of Islamic finance and economy. For Indonesia itself, he continued, the opportunity for the halal industry to become a good market to be developed such as food, beverages, cosmetics to halal tourism.
“For the export of halal meat to Arabia during the Hajj season, it’s not us even though we are the largest Muslim country. Not to mention our Islamic banking industry which is still lagging behind,” he said.
If Indonesia has a strong vision to penetrate the Islamic economy and finance, he continued, the impact will be enormous for Indonesia but the world community will also benefit from increasing consumption of halal products.
So far, he argues that the government has not been serious in developing the Islamic economy and finance. He also gave an example of the merger of three Islamic banks into Bank Syariah Indonesia which did not receive additional funding support. In addition, non-Muslim countries such as Thailand, according to him, are more serious in developing the halal industry.
He also advised the government to take advantage of the G20 forum to encourage the role of the Islamic economy by increasing affirmative policies towards the Islamic economy.
“After there is a strong affirmative policy, we will talk about the sharia economic ecosystem,” he said. (ojn/bbs)
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