Abstract
This article aims to analyse Indonesia's policy of joining China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through a perspective of distribution in Islamic economics. The BRI project is one of the agendas of the Chinese government to expand economic hegemony in the international market. At the same time, the Indonesian government has a national development priority program (PSN). However, the state's finite financial condition and the stagnation of economic growth became an obstacle for the Indonesian government to realize the domestic infrastructure projects. Therefore, the Indonesian government requires a source of capital other than the state budget. One of the steps taken by the Indonesian government is to become part of BRI. Behalf of these difficulties and opportunities, how Islamic economics argue the Indonesian government policy especially on distribution perspective. To address the question, this article utilizes descriptive qualitative methods and the theory of distribution of Islamic economics. It was found that the Indonesian government's infrastructure policy is in line with the spirit of Islamic distribution to reduce income disparity by providing equal access to infrastructure for the communities. Beside BRI's open access and integration to regional countries and supported by the needs of China's domestic industrial raw materials, Indonesia is predicted to be the largest exporter of raw materials. The need to export these raw materials will also tend to be exploitative and contrary to Islamic principles. Therefore, to tackle that, this article recommends the formulation of policies that encourage an expansive domestic industry so that Indonesia is not only an exporter of raw materials but also an exporter of goods and services.
Highlights
In the last few decades, poverty and unemployment have become important issues that have always been the concern of the Indonesian government
The decline in the percentage of poverty and open unemployment was accompanied by the growth of the Human Development Index (HDI) in Indonesia, as of 2018 Indonesia's HDI was at 71.39 percent, this percentage increased by 4.86 percent from 2010 with the HDI percentage of 66.53 percent (Badan Pusat Statistik 2018a)
The reduction in the percentage of poverty and unemployment cannot be separated from the role of the Indonesian government in accelerating the issuance of policies aimed at accelerating economic growth, equitable access, and creating comprehensive social welfare
Summary
In the last few decades, poverty and unemployment have become important issues that have always been the concern of the Indonesian government. According to data released by the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of poor people in Indonesia has decreased every year, it can be seen that as of March 2018 the percentage of poverty in Indonesia reached 9.82 percent or as many as 25.95 million people (Badan Pusat Statistik 2018b). The number of open unemployment per February 2019 reached 5.01 percent, this percentage decreased from the same period in February 2016 which was 5.50 percent (Badan Pusat Statistik 2019). One of the government policies used to achieve these goals is to accelerate the realization of infrastructure policies. This policy is contained in the 2015-2019 National Medium Term Development Plan (RPJM). The national project is estimated to require an investment of up to Rp 2,428,146 Trillion
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