IBEconomics

"What we're really talking about here is a culture change and for that to happen it's going to take quite a while to embed, all we're asking for is a bit of patience."

$23 billion in 2013

$20 billion last year

$32 billion

20 percent of the 2013 budget

fuel subsidies annually than it does on social programs and capital expenditures combined

revive a cash compensation program for poor families to cushion the blow

all other prices go up

two-tier gasoline pricing

public transportation vehicles would continue to pay 4,500 rupiah per liter

private vehicle and commercial vehicles like delivery trucks and company cars would pay 6,000 rupiah, a 33 percent increase.

6,500 rupiah per liter.

the country had the lowest fuel prices of any net oil-consuming nation in the world

Savings from eliminating or reducing a fuel subsidy could go to crucial public social programs including health care, as well as much-needed infrastructure investment, according to analysts

Ms. Natalia

About 29 million Indonesians live below the country’s national poverty line — 250,000 rupiah per person per month or 1,250,000 rupiah per family per month, and in urban areas, 350,000 rupiah per person per month or 1,500,000 rupiah per family per month. A further 70 million, categorized as near poor, live just above that line. Didik Rachbini, a prominent economist and member of Mr. Yudhoyono’s National Economic Council, which comprises economists and leading businessmen and advises the president on economic policy, said the government had a longstanding fear that increasing the price of fuel would push tens of millions of near-poor Indonesians below the poverty line.

country’s rich benefit from them far more than its poor do