WHEN campaigning for president in 2014, Joko Widodo said that he could make the Indonesian economy grow by 7% a year—a rate it regularly attained in the 1980s and 1990s but has not reached since (see chart). Alas, Mr Joko, known to all as Jokowi, has not met his target. This year the economy looks set to grow by about 5%, just as it did in 2014.There is no doubting the potential of Indonesia, an archipelago of 13,500 islands that stretches 3,330 miles (5,360km) along the equator—the distance from London to Afghanistan. Its economy is the biggest in South-East Asia by far, bigger than those of Britain or France on a purchasing-power-parity basis. It is home to 261m people, half of whom are younger than 30. Yet realising this potential has proved tricky of late.
Indonesian businesses are now required to have a ratio of foreign to local employees of 1:10, an increase from the previous 1:3 and 1:5 ratios.