Introduction Fashions in economics often come in cycles, stimulated first by considerable research interest in a recently-noticed phenomenon which then leads, in a later phase, to the development of a new orthodoxy as a new conventional wisdom is expounded in numer ous journal articles, mentioned in conferences, and written into the undergraduate text books. After a time, the likelihood is that even newer fashions will attract interest, and the older theories will find a place of greater or lesser prominence in the literature, depending on how they have withstood the test of time. Such a fashion is at present attracting the attention of development economists; the economic successes experienced by a number of export-oriented industrializing countries have stimulated interest in the growth strategies pursued in these newly industrializing countries (NICs), and word is abroad that the adoption of outward looking, trade-promoting patterns of growth/ especially for the manufacturing sector, will do much to promote both economic growth and greater equity. (An important stimulus to new policies in this direction was the influential book by Ian Li trie, Tibor Scitovsky and Maurice Scott, Industry and Trade in Some Developing Countries, Oxford University Press, 1970; recent thinking is summarized in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] publication, The Impact of the Newly Industrializing Countries on Production and Trade in Manufactures, report by the Secretary General, June 1979). The influence of such thinking has been much in evidence in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) circles in recent years; in reviewing developments in the Indonesian economy during 1979, it is the purpose of this paper to consider how relevant the new emphasis on outward-looking industria lization is for ASELAN*s largest member, and what steps should be taken to promote the growth of an efficient industrial structure in Indonesia. The underlying argument advanced here is that, while the importance and likely benefits of an outward-looking industrialization policy for Indonesia should not be over looked, neither should they be overemphasized. It seems that the relevance of an outward-looking strategy may, for a number of reasons, be less for Indonesia than for the other four members of ASEAN. First, the proponents of outward-lc>oking develop ment strategies argue that the liberalizations and the greater reliance on market forces that the adoption of such strategies necessarily entail, usually stimulate a range of domestic reforms which encourage entrepreneurship, efficiency, technical innovation, rationalization within industries, a new willingness to compete, and so on. Reforms in the foreign trade r?gime, it is argued, provide the much needed discipline which virtually forces domestic industrialists to become internationally efficient. But when one considers the patterns of development evident in the NICs (which include South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, and others), it is not clear which way the causality runs. Did the adoption of an outward-looking strategy stimulate internal