Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Dominic Jermey: Defining Collaboration in a Multipolar World

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Education, economy, and sustainability—where do we start to achieve Indonesia Emas 2045?Dominic Jermey (British Ambassador to Indonesia) emphasizes that collaboration is the key. From increasing the number of Indonesian students in the UK, tackling energy transition challenges, to attracting foreign investment, everything revolves around one thing: people. And a country like the UK stands ready to support this.A glimpse of hope—that Indonesia is not walking this path alone.#Endgame #GitaWirjawan #UnitedKingdom Explore and be part of our community ⁠https://endgame.id/⁠Collaborations and partnerships: ⁠https://sgpp.me/contactus

We need to rethink our multipolar world and the architecture around it. I'm Dominic Jeremy. Dominic Jeremy. Ambassador Dominic Jeremy. Dominic Jeremy said that he is committed to strengthening bilateral relationship between the UK and Indonesia in various sectors. It's a several trillion dollar question, how we do a transition to a world that is a world on a sustainable planet.

And that's something that we cannot, successfully achieve in a fractured global environment. Shakespeare's take on climate change, and through this distemperature, we see the seasons alter. The spring, the summer, the autumn, angry winter change, and make the mazared world not know which is which. Until and unless countries like the UK, you know, would have a better understanding of the aspirations of countries like Indonesia, I think we're all going to be exposed. Let's think about how for us as the UK to engage with countries like Indonesia from the

global south in a way that is about partnership, not paternalism. I think it's quite amazing that Indonesia, despite the limited domestic capital formation, we've still been able to grow at about four and a half to five percent. Just imagine if we were able to up the ante on foreign direct capital formation. So this is where I think the UK could play a meaningful role. There is a question for Indonesia. Well, getting to 8%, that means opening up in a whole different way. That means thinking about regulation, thinking about what it is that's going to make

Indonesian investments that compelling proposition. It's not easy. help me in re-marating the narrative. Hi, friends. Today we're visited by His Excellency, the Ambassador of the UK, Dominic Jeremy. Dominique, thank you so much for gracing our show. An absolute pleasure to be here, Gita. You've been around in the Foreign Service for a long time, but you grew up quite divergently. Talk a little bit about how you grew up.

Okay. So my parents are second-generation immigrants into the United States. the UK. Believe it not, they met in Iraq where they were both teachers. So we've always been a really international family, international in our outlook. And they were strongly Catholic. And so that whole sense of faith and family being very strong influences on me right from when I was a kid. And we used to travel around, visit their friends. My father worked in Turkey, my mother worked in Bahrain, very kind of international childhood in outlook. And so as I thought about what I wanted to do with my life, I really didn't have a clue. And at some point, I will know what I will do when I grow up. But as I feel my way from one thing to another,

I had the opportunity to live and work abroad. I left, when I left school, I went to South America and was a teacher there for a bit. And that was a whole new experience, learned Spanish. And then I decided I wanted to work in international developments. I decided the world needing, needed saving. And I was the person to save it. And I approached the United Nations and lots of NGOs. And they all said, hey, that's great.

But we got lots of kids who approach this with no qualifications like you. Go and get qualified in something. And that's when I went into finance. When would be the time that you realized that you belong to diplomacy? When did you start thinking about having a career in diplomacy? That's a great question. So I became a diplomat to go and do a role in Pakistan. Right.

Spending a year living with a couple of wonderful Pakistani families learning Urdu. so became a fluent Urdu speaker before then working with opposition groups in Pakistan to understand them and to liaise and went from there to Afghanistan at a time when Afghanistan was still in the civil war of the 1990s

and I was supporting a UN peace process there led by an amazing Algerian diplomat called Lakdar Bahini that didn't succeed and so that terrible feeling of having tried really hard to support a people escaping from nearly two decades of conflict since the Russian invasion of the late 1970s, and not being able to help them to come together in a peaceful way. And that was my first experience of the United Nations as well,

and met some incredibly talented, dedicated diplomats from all over the world, and was trying to trying to have a particular role that the UK was supporting there. And that was the point at which I thought, wow, you can really have a systemic impact on people's lives, on their hopes and aspirations for the future. And we were working a lot with community groups supporting particular women entrepreneurs who were having such a hard time at that moment under Taliban pretty oppressive, rule, and it breaks my heart to see that now returning to Afghanistan, and supporting them in just being able to have livelihoods that would enable them to eat. And that was when I thought,

hey, you can have a real force for good if you're a diplomat. And that was kind of when I settled into the role. I want to pick up on multilateralism, since you mentioned the United nations. Given that the world order has become a lot more multipolar, we've seen some sort of a declamation in the role of multilateral institutions. How do you see multilateralism progressing going forward at the rate that there's this, you know, meaningful degree of revisionism that's being pushed forth by certain economies or countries that would have been very little long time ago, but they've gotten much bigger. Call it the bricks.

But beyond the bricks, there would have been the Nigeria's of the world, the Mexicas of the world, the turkeys and the Indonesians of the world. How do you see multilateralization reshaping going forward? Well, it's interesting because the bricks, of course, involves China and Russia. And I mean, Russia is an international prior at the moment under Putin, but China and Russia were both part of the 1945 settlement that created the United Nations. They both have seats on the Security Council. So they're not really new on the international bloc.

But you're absolutely right, Gita. You know, there are important players like Indonesia, India. And you think Indonesia and India, that's the world's largest country by population and the world's fourth largest by country by population. These are important nations playing a very different role to the role that they played 705 years ago when the United Nations was set up. And so what do I think?

I think that we need to rethink our multipolar world and the architecture around it. So in practice, that means we need the United Nations. So let's have a United Nations with a reformed security council that has greater representation from the global South. And let's think about as the UK, we're particularly committed to doing this. Let's think about how to, for us as the UK, to engage with countries like Indonesia from the global South in a way that is about partnership, not paternalism, looking to solve. global issues together. So what's happened in China over the last 30, 40 years in terms of lifting people out of poverty

is outstanding. It is first time in human history. Not many people, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. But as we see from the Sustainable Development Goals, there are many, many hundreds of millions of people still who struggle to put food on the table every day. and addressing that in a way that doesn't mortgage the future of the planet from a sustainability point of view

is something that the bricks can't do on their own, the Security Council can't do on their own, we have all got to find ways of collaborating together. And it's also, you know, thinking about global architecture in a multipolar world, it's not just a government-led world, You think about the impact that Amazon can have or the energy majors like BP or whoever they may happen to be. These are massive players in the future of our planet from a development point of view, from a sustainable future perspective, also frankly from a political perspective, because they can move markets.

and they can affect who gets elected by the way that they bring or don't bring prosperity to swing states in elections. So it's a really complex multidimensional order at the moment where, you know, in all humidity, I think we as or I representing a country, I'm one actor among many. Yeah. Well, I think it's safe to assume that as economies become larger, they tend to think of what it would take for them to be able to create some sort of a strategic autonomy in a much more multipolar kind of world. And call it Indonesia, call it India, call it Turkey or Mexico or Nigeria. countries of their respective sizes, they tend to want to expand a little bit more on their freedom of choice as they try to climb the global order. I don't think it's going to be that easy without real investment in human capital, real investment in governance, real investment in infrastructure, real investment in how to become more competitive.

Right. And this is where I think it becomes more challenging when we're seeing so many democracies around the world. Paradoxically, the intersection between power and talent has become a little bit more, you know, hazy. Okay. Right. You know, you spend a lot of time on so many things. I want to pick up on just human capital first, right? Right. How do you think countries like Indonesia would be able to,

get better in finding the better intersection between power and talent, so that the selection of talent is a lot more based on meritocracy as opposed to call it patronage and or loyalty. And I say this with respect to many democracies around the world that have been selecting talent, I think, a lot more based on patronage and or loyalty. As compared to China, which would have been an autocracy, but I think until recently, being quite good in selecting talent based on meritocracy. Wow, that's a big statement, my friend. This is a challenge.

So 2024 is the year when more elections take place than I think has ever happened before in history. So a vast number of vast proportion of the world's population has gone to the polls. And some of those have been free, fair elections, and some have been ones where you knew who was going to get voted in before anybody went anywhere near it. the kind of autocracy that you're describing there. In terms of bringing on that talent, I saw the impact of education in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, just as an example, I was there just as the Taliban were booted out in 2001.

And I was there a few years before, the Taliban returned. I was last there at the end of 2017. And there is now, through a great deal of effort, including by the United Kingdom and by Indonesia, there is a whole swat of millions of young and not so young Afghans who are highly educated, who are globally connected, who understand what is out there and is available to them in the world. And they want to be part of that. and those people have not gone away, whoever is in charge there at the moment. So at the moment they're denied exactly the kind of democracy

that you're talking about. That will change at some point. But when I look at Indonesia and from a UK point of view, we are enormously, enormously proud that there are more young Indonesians coming to the UK on government scholarships than to any other country. and that's on Indonesian government scholarships,

and we have our own achieving government scholarship scheme. And this year, there are two universities from the UK opening campuses here in Indonesia so that young Indonesians can get access to a world-class education, King's College London, Lancaster University, without needing to leave Indonesia. And I think that whole

Somedham Anusia, the Bonest Demography, Indonesia, that whole narrative is one of recognizing that to achieve the potential of this country you know Indonesia enas in Papuululul Lima that's going to depend on the people and that investment in the people

yes infrastructure is important yes the energy transition is phenomenally important to having a clean future but actually seeing the reports of Indonesia becoming maybe the world's fifth largest economy by 2045.

Amen. Exactly. And that is achievable, but only achievable, with that kind of investment, with that investment in people. And I think that the UK can play a part in that. But what I also see is planning and preparation in Indonesia to start opening up in a way that will allow those, if you'd like to cherry pick from the best around the world in terms of bringing in the vocational training, the academic training, the access to those global

influences that will allow Indonesia to invest in its young people. So goodness me, it's a real challenge, but it's a challenge that has the support of the United Kingdom, sort of many other countries to help Indonesia achieve that. What would it take for, you know, the The last time I checked, there would have been around 4,000 Indonesians studying at the UK, in the UK. And I see the UK as still one of the preeminent allocator of technological capital and economic slash financial capital. If we were to compare our numbers with the Chinese, there's about 200,000 Chinese out there.

If you go to the US, there's about 350,000 to 400,000 Chinese. as compared to only 8,500 Indonesians. What would it take for that 4,000 number to go up to a much higher number? Great question. I ask myself. Yeah. So take the example of India. In 2019, there were about 40,000 young Indians studying in UK universities.

Today, that number has more than quadrupled. Wow. nearly 200,000. So that's 150,000 more Indians in just five years going to UK universities. So there is an openness. There is a willingness to engage and embrace and to support what India is trying to do, which is a quantum leap in terms of the investment in its young people and the next generation. So for Indonesia, I think that there is already a foundation.

Part of, and I know Gita you have a particular interest in English language. I've been sounding like a parrot for the last few years. But a parrot in English, so that's a good thing. Part of the way I see that leap happening for Indonesia, and of course I want that to be to UK universities. But there will be other countries as well where young Indonesians will want to go to too, is by investing in the teaching of English language. And so that's something that we as the UK, through the British Council, really focus on here and supporting the developments of curriculum

by Kermendikbud, the Education Ministry, that has English language teaching within it, supporting, we do a great deal of teaching of teachers, teaching of trainers here, to support the growth of, or the raising of the standard of English language teaching. So I think that's number one. I think number two is a real understanding by business and by government of the value

and the comparative value of an education, those sorts of qualifications and that you can get from an outstanding world-class education in the UK university. so that if I'm a young Indonesian thinking about making a significant investment, whether I have a scholarship or whether I am borrowing from my parents or the bank, or whatever it is, a significant investment in my future, I know that I'm going to be able to find a job that's going to enable me to repay that investment. And so I think there's something that we can do as government, as embassies, I think there's something that employers can do who want the very best talent and want that

talent to be really well trained in terms of getting some of the incentives in place and encouraging young Indonesians to take up that offer. But I think that model of in five years, 160,000 more Indians every year now to go to the UK, that's what I'd like to catalyze here in Indonesia. you know, I've been thinking about this and I keep getting confused by people as

the ambassador of the UK for saying that English is important and my mission is really to figure out a way so that people become educated and people fail to see that most of wisdom that's it's documented in English

and most economic activities around the world would have been done in English so you just if you want to bring about more relevance economically and scientifically or wisely, you just got to know the language as simple as that. And number two, I think Indonesia as a large part of Southeast Asia. And I can say this for Southeast Asia. It is a region that is oftentimes under-narrated. You know, people get more excited talking about Taiwan, Korea,

Japan, India, and China. But you've got this massive region of 700 million people, of which Indonesia occupies about 43% that doesn't get talked about in other places as much as some of those other regions. And I think it balls down to the degree to which we can actually tell our stories in an internationally acceptable language,

one of which is English. The last bit is really if you want to do AI, you want to do machine learning in a large language model is in English. There's not a way around this, right? But going back to the question of quadrupling, quantiplin, the preexisting number of 4,000, I actually think we should be represented at least by 100,000 Indonesians in the UK all across the campuses. help me in re-narrating the narrative so that we can have, you know, Indonesian studying at universities and in the UK at a much larger level. I would be delighted to, Gita.

And I think there's, you know, that's demand and supply. One of the things I've seen happening in the last few years with Indonesia is UK universities is understanding that there is this bonus demography here, and that there are so many young Indonesians who are just looking outward and want to kind of explore and experience the world. And so seeing so many more universities coming here to tell their story a little bit

and to learn how to make it easier, how to make it more natural for a UK, master's PhD and in some cases, Es Sato, the bachelor's degree, how to make that just the next step and feel like the next step for a young Indonesian. So I'm with you on this. I'll push a little bit on this. Please. And I think you would be so darn good if we have disproportionately a lot more Indonesians represented at all the top universities in the UK, the Augsburg is, the Imperials, the UCLs of the world, right? And I think we need to be represented, you know, quite representatively.

And I do believe that, you know, it's not a question of academic credentials, But oftentimes the Indonesians, they don't get into the international campuses because of their inability to score on the administrative test requirements. In the U.S., they call it the SATs, the GMATs and all that good stuff, right? People oftentimes don't prepare for that. This is the kind of stuff that the Indians, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Taiwanese. the Singaporeans spend a lot more time on and i think we could spend more time on that and this is probably an area where you and the indonesian government or the indonesian people could collectively work on together so that there is better administrative you know required

skills before you enter the universities then you might be able to see i think greater degree of representation by indonesians that all the campuses in the u i'm in the uk That's a really interesting observation. And we do a certain amount of supporting people, in particular, from some of the most distant, from Java, the most distant provinces of Indonesia, and supporting women and people with disability to navigate the process of how you engage on applying for, on pushing women and people with disability to navigate the process of how you engage on applying for, on pushing. yourself in the best possible position to be accepted for UK university when we're looking at the achieving scholarships that we give as a government. But I think that's, you make a really interesting point about how to take that, which is a somewhat boutique area of endeavor, and to try to make it almost an industrial area and endeavor. Because I'm with you. I'm not

interested in quintupling from 4,000. I'm interested in how you get to 100,000. Oh, absolutely. Because this is a country with, you know, 0.3 of the billion people in it. And so when you think about it from a reputation perspective, sorry, representation perspective is one way of looking at it, but just the sheer amount of of talent in the Indonesian population that is at the moment not yet, yet percolating to the world's best universities. And, you know, of the top three, two of them are in the UK. Yeah.

But all the rest as well of the top 100, et cetera, which is one of the reasons why having KCL, King's College London, open up earlier this year, I think it's in the top 40 in the world in Indonesia, is, I think, a really good way of starting to change that dynamic. but I want to do it at speed, at scale. Keep sprouting it. Keep sprouting it.

Great advice. Now, you spent quite a bit of time on the environment. Let's talk about that, right? What do you think Indonesia could do differently? Or what do you think Indonesia needs to amplify in the context of, you know, sustainability being environmentally friendly to the planet and all that. We can splice it into the energy side of the equation or we can splice it into, you know, the circularity part of the, you know, sustainability narrative.

I'd love to just before I go there. Yeah. I'm just from a human perspective, I left being an ambassador for five years to go and head up an environment NGO. And I did that because as I look at what's going to most impact. on the world of my kids and my grandkids, if I ever have any, it's what's happening to the planet in terms of global warming. And so while geopolitics concerns me,

while what's happening with global growth, I want to see global growth growing, and I'm concerned that it's installed a little bit since the pandemic, My main focus of how I want to have an impact and spend my time having an impact is around the environment because, frankly, the numbers are looking pretty scary. Absolutely. A 1.5 degree world, so that's 1.5 warming above pre-industrial levels. It's actually much higher than that. We're on a trajectory that is not looking good for that.

And I want to keep that as the guiding North Star, but you're right, it's looking pretty precarious. And so to change that, to have a real impact on that, that is something where governments play an enormously important framing role. But frankly, all of us, whether we are voters, consumers, shareholders, owners of businesses, The private sector is where the main capital is going to come from to achieve the sort of path to sustainability that we need. So to answer your question directly, I think the biggest area is going to be around the

energy transition. So Indonesia has a phenomenal contribution to the world as one of the three great forests that are the lungs of the planet. And without those three great forests, we don't set a chance. So the preservation and the conservation of forestry and Indonesia are phenomenally important. We're proud to be working with the Indonesian government on supporting the way that forests are managed. There's been some really innovative work in this country. And over the last 10 years, deforestation in Indonesia has significantly reduced on a year-by-year basis, which is really good news. And I think the energy transition, though, is the other side of that coin.

For Indonesia to be a net carbon sink, rather than, as it is at the moment, the net carbon emitter, it's all about that energy transition. And that's moving away from coal-fired power stations. And that's seriously hard, because this is a country that exports coal. and has a legitimate desire for its people to have access to energy. That is enormously important from a development perspective and an economic growth perspective. And so there the whole conversation and certainly our engagement is how to support Indonesia in making that shift to renewable energy,

whether that is using the incredible geothermal resources that Indonesia's got, and whether it's extending further the solar, including floating solar, but tidal, wind, there are many options. The price, the marginal price of every kilowatt hour is coming down year by year, but it's weaning us off that addiction

to fossil fuels is where we need to be. And for the UK, we closed our last coal-fired power station this year. And that's been a long, difficult journey, and it needs to be a just energy transition. And so we've been thinking about the people who worked in our coal industry, how do we help them to retool so that they can have a future that is productive, that they can contribute to the economy for the future, whether it's in energy or in a different area.

And so supporting a just energy transition in Indonesia is something that we're really mindful of so that you get the economics, right? You've also got to get the politics, the kind of the human elements of it, right? I think if you asked any coal-fired power generation capability producer, they'll be happy to stop today, as long as the alternatives are affordable. From a production standpoint and also from an availing standpoint to the consumers. At the moment, Indonesia, like many other developing economies, they could only afford about three to five cents per kilowatt hour.

However, the alternative technologies, they could only be available at a cost of 15 cents. So I'm not questioning the viability of the technological alternatives, but I think the economic viability for developing economies like Indonesia is still not there. So I think the million dollar question is, how do we get it to a point where we can actually source it differently in a much more economically viable manner? Right. So you have, the UK has tremendous technological capability, you know, capability. Also economic capital capability.

Sure. So I think there needs to be some things. thinking about how do you make sure that that technology is going to come down from 15 cents to 14, 13, 12 onward, while the purchasing power may not be moving as fast, you know, as the technology is coming down. Because this thing is going to have to move up from 5 cents to 6 cents to 7 cents, and that intersection will take a while. Until then, I think we're all exposed. This is the baseline. You have to rebase that if you're thinking about countries like Indonesia and others in the context of AIing themselves.

AI has been known as a tremendous consumer of energy. And when you listen to the invidias of the world, they're talking about the latest GPU being able to 10x or 30x vis-vis the previous capability. that's a 30x energy requirement. And that I think is the reality that needs to be projected onto conversation so that we can collectively try to find solutions, both technologically, but I think more importantly, economically. So we don't have an answer, but I'm just saying that I think it needs to surface in conversations

because the realism of the sustainability narrative needs to be there. I think, so I agree with you that economic, that technological, but also I think that political angle to it as well is pretty critical. And it's really interesting you frame it around the needs of AI in the future, which AI is that classic double-edged sword that could be a great leveler, it could be a great way to unlock enormous kind of value and ingenuity for the future, but also we see, goodness, some of the harms that AI can cause, particularly in the media and information space, swinging elections as an example in a way that doesn't reflect the whole spirit of

democracy, which is one of the reasons why we're very mindful of the, of new, of new, needing to get a balance right on the collective regulation of AI, which no individual state can do. And it can't be, I think, led by individual developers and video or anybody else. But it needs to be a conversation amongst us all about what kind of world we want to have here and how do we want this to be governed? Because this is a whole new force. There are some countries who are just opening the whole kimono with respect to AI. There are some countries that are, I think, a lot more measured

about pushing the narrative forward. I tend to be in the latter camp. I think we need to be a bit more measured given the fact that AI is not being pushed forth in an adequately multidisciplinary manner. It's a little too technologically biased. It's not involving the environmentalist, the economists, the sociologists, the culturalist, what have you. And at the rate that it's not being pushed forth in an adequately multidisciplinary manner, I think there's a risk of this ending up in an not so benign manner. You've spent time on peace, right? I'll draw the picture. The world spends about $2.75 to $3 trillion on defense annually. The United Nations has an annual budget of around $4 billion.

What's to hope for a piece on the back of that and on the back of what some of the conflicts that we're seeing, unfortunately, happening in Ukraine, in West Asia and all that? Talk about that. Well, I think it goes back to our discussion about multilateralism and geopolitical tensions. This is a moment of where there are more people who have been displaced by conflict. that at any other point in global history. And that is not the world that we want to live in ourselves or we want our children to inherit.

And so I think this is where the United Nations and rethinking how we come together as a global community is absolutely essential. So if I look at the situation in Gaza, we need a sustainable peace in Gaza. We need a ceasefire. We need the immediate return of the hostages that were taken from Israel. We need to get aid into Gaza, and we need that track to the two-state solution that is irrevocable

so that people have confidence that that is where we're going. In Ukraine, we need Russia to, we need Putin, to withdraw from a state. that he is unilaterally violated and to obey the United Nations rules, global law about how we respect the sovereignty of other nation states. So what I'm seeing at the moment is a world where we lack the ability to have those conversations in order to come to solutions that are actually delivering what our people need. And that is not a sustainable position. So this is why, as we look at the world as the UK, we think of ourselves as an independent and free actor.

We are close to Europe, but we're not part of the – we're part of Europe, but we're part of the EU. We're a permanent member of the Security Council. Our closest relationship is with the United States, but we are not the United States. And we want to have a much closer dialogue with members of the global South. Because we see that a world where, frankly, nation states are not listening to each other and not engaging is not a world that is a sustainable place to be. You mentioned the spend on defense. I think I would put around a different way, referencing our discussion earlier on

what it's going to take, you described it as a million dollar question how we do the transition to renewable energy. Actually, it's a several trillion dollar question, how we do a transition to a world that is a world on a sustainable energy, a sustainable kind of planet, a way of doing business. And that's something that we cannot successfully achieve in a fractured global environment because it takes a collaboration, a combination, including leveraging the private sector. And one of the things I think was brilliant about, for example, COP 26 in Glasgow or COP 28 in Dubai was bringing in masses of representatives of the private sector to start accessing pools of private capital in order to produce some of the solutions to really intractable

challenges facing us. So climate and environment, the big money that is going to produce sustainable infrastructure, sustainable ways of having transport, that's not going to come from government. It's not going to come from the United Nations Overseas Development Assistance Budget. That's going to come from innovators in the private sector and capital being invested in that. I think the path to the SDGs, if we're serious about the SDGs in 2030, and we as the UK are, and in Indonesia, delivery on the SDGs domestically has been stellar. It is something of which Indonesians should be enormously proud. As a global community, though, we are off track. and to get there.

Yes, I think government spend and overseas development administration admin spend has got a real part in that. But actually it's going to be innovation and pull to capital from the private sector pulling in in order to develop ways of educating people, bringing healthcare, developing infrastructure

and that's going to raise people out of poverty at the moment. So I think it's, going back to that multipolar complex web of issues, Gita. It's not easy, right? I'm just curious as to what your views are on how do you think Indonesia ought to look at, I think you're right, that the kind of unilateralism that Putin is doing. But similarly, the kind of unilateralism that Israel is doing to Gaza, is not acceptable, right?

And I'm just curious as to what your views are with respect to how you think Indonesia as the largest Muslim majority country, the third largest democracy, ought to do more. I mean, I personally am in a camp that believes that, you know, we could be an interlocutor. Sometime in the future, maybe not now. But how do you think we could help ourselves in becoming an interlocutor for certain situations that are global in nature or in scale, such as what we're seeing in Ukraine and what we're seeing in West Asia? I think Indonesia has a really authentic voice on many of these discussions. as you say, as a democracy that is the world's largest, populist, Muslim country, but also as a guardian of one of the three relevant global forests that is the lungs of the planet, not just in

the geopolitical space, but also in the climate change space, and of the growing economy as well. what Indonesia has done in the last 10 years in terms of its infrastructure development, in terms of an average of 5% apart from the pandemic, 5% GDP growth. That's a story that is worth being seen at a global level. And so as I look at the relationship between Indonesia and the United Kingdom, I would hope that we would have a strategic partnership to be known as to, recognizing Indonesia wishes to remain baibast and active. That's something completely irrespect.

But to look for ways where we can leverage. The UK's, we're a sixth or seventh-fiflest economy in the world, a member of the Security Council, part of NATO, close relationships in the global north, but also across the Commonwealth, the global south, etc., leverage the UK's relationships, working with Indonesia in some of the ways that Indonesia wishes to have relationships with China that we don't have. And we have a relationship with China, but you have a very different one as Indonesia. In Southeast Asia, elsewhere across the global south. to see what it is that we can do together,

that perhaps would be just more difficult for Indonesia on its own or for the United Kingdom. And I think there is the possibility for creative, interesting conversations because in both countries, we have a new leadership. We have Prime Minister Stawa, we've got President Proboa coming in, and they both want to do something extraordinary for their country.

They have ambitions that, are really challenging to deliver. Prime Minister Stama, he talks about getting some of the fastest rates of growth in the UK for a G7, for a G20 country. We're talking about becoming a global superpower on clean energy. We can't do that on our own. We need partnership with countries like Indonesia to achieve that. And I know that Barbara Bo's ambitions are quite extraordinary. ordinary around rates of growth, around education, around nutrition in this country, tackling

challenges around healthcare. These are all areas where collaboration, I think, is at the heart of it. And where you started, Githra in this question, around some of the global issues that challenges all, that's actually where I think maybe oxygenating some of the discussions and thinking about, well, actually, what is it that we could do with? the UK, our history in the Middle East, it's a very distinct one with what Indonesia has been doing through the OIC. Well, maybe there'd be a way of approaching this differently if we think about it in a more creative manner. So I'm always looking, Gita for a bilateral angle, to see how we,

We as two nations, two great nations, can contribute to some of these global issues, be they geopolitical or be they economic, be they environmental. And I think now with two new leaderships is exactly the time to be thinking about how we achieve that. I see a grand opportunity for both countries, and I can speak for Indonesia. I think it's safe to assume that the president-elect who's going to be inaugurated tomorrow, he has tremendous internationalist instinct. And I would be presumptuous of his intentions of further diversifying the posturing of Indonesia.

I think, you know, we're very close to China, but I think the president also would like to maintain closeness to other great nations, including the UK. And I see the UK as being a prominent member of the G7, which has tremendous liquidity. And this liquidity needs to be reallocated to better places that entail better returns. Indeed. On the back of what we've seen recently, you know, the interest rate, you know, reduction in the U.S. that I think is going to propel other economies or other countries to follow suit, inclusive of hopefully the other members of the G7, that I think will pay way for better conversations on how that economic capital ought to be reallocated, right, beyond the G7 countries.

hopefully to places like Indonesia where the conversation on energy transition could be much more robust because as I've alluded to earlier before that you know for energy transition purposes Southeast Asia is going to need about two to three trillion dollars for most of the economies to become modern being defined at 6,000 kilowatt hour per capita we don't have that kind of money You know, Indonesia has only been getting about $25 to $30 billion worth of FFDI on a yearly basis. Just for Indonesia and energy transition to become modern, we're going to need around a trillion dollars. That's not going to happen by 2050. So until and unless countries like the UK would have a better understanding of the aspirations of countries like Indonesia,

I think we're all going to be exposed. So this is where I think the richness of the conversation between the UK and Indonesia could be further amplified for purposes of attaining that liquidity, but we have to account for it. And then making sure that that liquidity is being funneled for noble purposes, one of which is energy transition. What do you think?

I think that's a great question. And in a way, it goes back to those 100,000 Indonesian students we want to see in the UK. Because if you can increase the knowledge and understanding in one of the worlds, in fact, it is the world's international financial centre, London, of the opportunities in Indonesia, If the market in Indonesia can be enabled to be more kind of accommodating, more open to FDI in that way, then you're absolutely right. The pool of capital that is there going through London on a daily basis is what we want to unlock.

But not only that pool of capital. It's the innovation as well. the really exciting start-ups that are doing funky business around finance, around green growth, around AI, whatever it is, unlocking that whole ecosystem of technological innovation and using it in Indonesia in such a way that it's going to be delivering on the priorities that you have as a nation. And so that's a coming together of the planets, a particular way. It means increasing awareness of the opportunities around Indonesia. And to do that, how do you do that in the UK? Well, one of the ways is by increasing

the number of young Indonesians coming to the UK. It's looking for ways to unlock knowledge about Indonesia in the UK as well, bringing people over to Jakarta and the UK. elsewhere. And this autumn, there's been a really impactful investment summit in London that our two governments have been collaborating on with many, many businesses, talking about opportunities for innovative businesses and throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The challenge that I set ourselves as the UK government is how we support this happening at scale. And I think there is a There is a question for Indonesia. You've been so successful as an economy in a relatively local manner as a Southeast Asian giant.

There's an extent to which you kind of haven't needed that global innovation to achieve 5% growth rates. Well, getting to 8%. That means opening up in a whole different way. Getting the FDI in that you describe that energy transition, that means thinking about regulation, thinking about what it is that's going to make Indonesian investment that compelling proposition as opposed to putting money in the Gulf or in the UK or elsewhere. And the UK is the year after year. We've been the second most attractive destination for FDI around the planet, year after year.

year after year. And the reason that's happened is because we've deregulated and made it easy for inward investors to come to the UK. And so I think it's really positive that Indonesia is now beginning its journey to accession to the OECD and to the CPP. Both of these are international global economic clubs. both of them require the members to open up their borders and to encourage sort of innovation and ease of trade between them. And in the case of CPP, this is a group in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

We, the UK, are the first member to join after it was formed with Indonesia now wanting to become part of it. I think there is a special conversation that we can have helping Indonesia to navigate what it's like to join a group like that. Because we've just done it ourselves. We're only becoming full members in December of 2024. I truly believe your voice, the voice of the UK, will matter in changing the perception of others with respect to Indonesia. And I'll go back to what you alluded to earlier. this would have been the foreign capital formation. I think it's quite amazing that Indonesia,

despite the limited domestic capital formation, if you take a look at the money supply to GDP ratio, it's only at about 45%. Singapore is 200%, just to give you a sense, right? We need to be at least at 100%. But without our being at 100%, we've still been able to grow at about 4.5% to 5%. Just imagine if we were able to up the ante on foreign direct capital formation.

So Southeast Asia has been getting about $200 billion worth of FDI, of which Singapore has been getting about 50% of that, consistently. And the way Singapore has been able to get $100,000 to $120 billion a year out of the 200 billion is similar to how the UK has been able to attract. FDI. It's just amazing how Singapore has been able to position itself in a very trustworthy manner, irrespective of ideology. Right? So I've been arguing that Singapore has been able to attract massive capital formation mainly because of trustworthiness because of the rule of law, not because of ideology, not because of geography, not because of natural resources or whatever. Indonesia has been getting about 25 to 30 billion a year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand would have been getting about 10 to 20 billion a year.

So if we were to be able to move the needle from 30 billion to, let's say, 70 billion, the projected 8% growth rate is realizable. Because all you need is that additional $40 billion worth. of FVDI, which represents about 3% of the $1.4 trillion economy. That's the delta, right? Yeah. So this is where I think the UK could play a meaningful role in whispering that given the increasing internationalism of Indonesia, given the fact that it's trying to project itself

you know, more proactively to the world, who knows? There could be more capital allocation. I think they could. And it's exactly what, as I understand it, the new Indonesia government is looking to achieve. I think supporting, working with partnering on accession to those two trading blocks, OECD and CPPTPP, is certainly one area on the economic front where I would see for the future the UK working very closely with Indonesia. But as we look at our relationship over the last 75th, 75 years, we're celebrating 75 years of Indonesia-Uk. Diplomatic relationship this year.

And as I look to the future of the next 75 years, yes, it's about collaboration in that economic space. But actually, I think there are all sorts of ways that we can be collaborating together. And for example, I normally make the comment that we have been practicing democracy for about 700 years now. We still haven't got it right. You know, two democratic nations coming together, looking at what we know about institutions, how we approach financial regulation, how each of us approaches different market instruments, something like setting up carbon trading, carbon markets for the future.

future. There are so many different areas of support and collaboration. You mentioned Githa whispering in the ear of Indonesia. I wouldn't presume to do that, but I think that... The ears of the others. Not the Indonesians. Not the Indonesians. I think that the internationalist outlook that your new president brings is really exciting for Indonesia, whether it's for five years, for ten years, I think this is, it feels like a bit of a new, new era. And I think that for us, too, we have, you talk about the rule of law. We now have in Prime Minister Stama a lawyer, the director of public prosecutions,

was his job before he entered politics. So we have a particular focus on the rule of law. And I think this is going to be an exciting and creating. partnership between these two countries under their two new leaders. Dominique, I know you got to go. I'm going to ask you the last question. Before you got here, you would have gone through so much orientation. You've been here for a year. What are some of the things that you've found to be different from what you heard about

or you studied about Indonesia? Oh, goodness me, where to start? Anything that surprised you on the upside or anything that surprised you on the downside? So I knew about the diversity of Indonesia. I knew that if you put a map of Indonesia and a map of Europe, you go from Western Ireland to pretty much Ukraine. The sheer size of Indonesia, I kind of knew that, but it was only when I arrived and started traveling,

around. I'll tell you a story. I went to Sumba, and I saw this really beautiful place. Extraordinary. I went to this little village called Cota Reddy where this lady, Mama Ines, I got a fridge. And in her fridge, she had water that she turned into ice, and she sold us. And she was earning $60,000, $70,000 a day. And the electricity for that fridge came from a renewable energy project that my embassy had supported. And it was a starter demonstrator to see how you could get renewable energy in a really remote part of Indonesia that was not connected to the grid. How you could do that in a way that would transform lives and transform economy. And talking to Mama Ines about the impact on her, her kids, her grandkids, her village

of being able to have a fridge and lights in the street so that her daughter could get home safely from school was just breathtaking. And that made me think, whoa, this is a really cool country, and it's just amazing how sometimes partnerships that we do together produce beautiful things. Keep at it. Keep at it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

That was Dominic Jeremy. UK ambassador in Indonesia. Thank you. This is endgame.