83 Facts About Sumitro Djojohadikusumo

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was an Indonesian statesman and one of the country's most influential economists.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo held ministerial positions under Presidents Sukarno and Suharto intermittently between 1950 and 1978.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was the dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo implemented the protectionist Benteng program, and developed an economic plan which aimed for national industrialization.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo further served as finance minister in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Wilopo and Burhanuddin Harahap during the Sukarno era.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was involved in the high-level planning of Indonesia's economy, along with many of his former students from the University of Indonesia.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was the eldest child of Margono Djojohadikusumo, a high ranking civil servant in the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies and later founder of Bank Negara Indonesia, and Siti Katoemi Wirodihardjo.

The Sumitro Djojohadikusumo family was part of the Javanese aristocracy's lower rungs.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo studied at a Europeesche Lagere School, then an Opleiding School Voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren in Banyumas.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was completing his dissertation at Rotterdam in May 1940 when German forces invaded the Netherlands, and during the Rotterdam Blitz he was nearly killed by a Luftwaffe bomb which destroyed one of the walls to his room.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo still completed his dissertation, "The People's Credit Service during the Depression", and earned his doctorate in 1943.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo briefly joined a Dutch delegation taking part in the first United Nations Security Council meeting in London in January 1946 as an advisor to Dutch foreign minister Eelco van Kleffens.

An Indonesian report, in contrast, stated that Sumitro Djojohadikusumo did not act in support of the restoration of Dutch rule and had attended the meeting to assess the international mood regarding Indonesian independence.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo joined the newly formed government of the Republic of Indonesia which had declared itself independent from Dutch colonial rule with Sukarno as president.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo became an assistant to Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir and later worked at the Ministry of Finance.

In late June 1946, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was part of Sjahrir's entourage in Surakarta when the group was kidnapped by disgruntled army units led by Major General Sudarsono, commander of a division within the Indonesian Army.

Later in 1946 Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was assigned to the Indonesian observer delegation to the United Nations as deputy chief of mission and minister plenipotentiary for economic affairs, while he unofficially engaged in fundraising.

In effect, this was an embargo on Indonesian-controlled territories, and Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was charged with bypassing it.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo had arranged the ship's voyage despite expecting a Dutch seizure, as the delegation calculated that the media attention would be invaluable.

Previously the Indonesian delegation had been ignored, but the military operation brought Indonesia to the forefront of attention, and after a meeting with Under Secretary of State Robert A Lovett, Sumitro gave a press conference which was prominently featured in American media.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo wanted to negotiate down the debt further, but was overridden by Vice President Mohammad Hatta.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo replaced Tandiono Manu who served in the previous Halim Cabinet.

Contrary to the views of Finance Minister Sjafruddin Prawiranegara who focused on agricultural development, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo viewed industrialization as necessary to develop Indonesia's then-agrarian economy.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo introduced the "Economic Urgency Plan" which aimed to restore industrial facilities that had been damaged by the Japanese invasion and the subsequent war of independence.

The plan, sometimes called the "Sumitro Djojohadikusumo Plan", was published in April 1951 and called for the use of government funds to develop industrial facilities across Java and Sumatra.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo initiated the Benteng program, an import control scheme benefitting indigenous Indonesian businessmen at the expense of the Chinese Indonesian mercantile class, despite his own preference for a free market system for imports.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo then became dean of the economics faculty at the University of Indonesia after its first dean Sunarjo Kolopaking had resigned.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo served in this academic position between 1951 and 1957, and in this position he recruited Dutch academics to cover the lack of native Indonesian teachers in the faculty.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo founded the Institute of Economic and Social Research, which he would later use to develop economic policies when he returned to government.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo arranged for an affiliate program between the faculty and the department of economics at University of California, Berkeley.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo took part in efforts to nationalize De Javasche Bank, the central bank of the Dutch East Indies era.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo attacked Sjafruddin's priority on agrarian development, citing the poor standard of living in the agrarian economic structure before independence, and disagreed with Sjafruddin's policy on accumulating capital reserves instead of pursuing an expansionary fiscal policy.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo supported the transmigration program moving residents from densely populated Java to other sparsely populated islands, though he noted that industrial development in the migration regions would be needed.

When drafting the relevant laws, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo incorporated a requirement that all directors of the Bank's board be Indonesian citizens.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo expanded the Benteng program, extending the list of restricted goods from ten per cent of imports to over half.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo himself did not believe that the Benteng program would be perfect in execution, even commenting that a majority of the businessmen given support might turn out to be "parasites".

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was named Minister of Finance in one such proposed cabinet by Burhanuddin Harahap, but his candidacy in particular was vetoed by the Indonesian National Party and eventually the First Ali Sastroamidjojo Cabinet was formed on 30 July 1953 in which Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was replaced by Ong Eng Die.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo would retake the office of finance minister from Ong Eng Die in 1955, as part of the Burhanuddin Harahap Cabinet.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was one of the few highly educated and experienced ministers in the cabinet.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was dispatched to Geneva in late 1955 to negotiate the issue of Western New Guinea with the Dutch, and despite progress on negotiations thanks to American, British, and Indian pressure on Dutch negotiators, domestic political pressure caused the Indonesian government to withdraw from negotiations in January 1956.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was a supporter of foreign investment, and in a speech shortly before his first inauguration as finance minister he commented how removing foreign investors would be akin to "digging our own grave".

Aidit directly accused Sumitro Djojohadikusumo of "siding with imperialism and feudalism", and he argued that Sumitro Djojohadikusumo's economic approach which involved foreign investment did not fit Indonesian rural society.

In early May 1957 Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was summoned twice under suspicions of corruption related to PSI's fundraising for the 1955 election, and his links to a businessman who had been jailed for bribery.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo stated his plans to finance the movement through the sales of Sumatra's agricultural products to the British.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo had been approached by a Minangkabau businessman to create the faculty in 1956, and had laid the initial groundwork prior to his flight from Jakarta.

The faculty was officially opened in September 1957, with Sumitro Djojohadikusumo becoming its dean and giving an opening lecture.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo would give lectures for the faculty for some time before the rebellion broke out.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo participated in another dissident meeting in the town of Sungai Dareh in January 1958.

When Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was in Singapore in late January 1958, the Indonesian government sent a request to British authorities to repatriate him.

On 15 February 1958, the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia was declared in Bukittinggi, in which Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was named as minister of trade and communications, and Sjafruddin was appointed as prime minister.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was considered one of the primary leaders of PRRI.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was appointed as acting foreign minister in this cabinet.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo gradually drifted away from the Sumatra-based movement, and instead focused his efforts to support Permesta with smuggled supplies.

GPI and Sumitro Djojohadikusumo openly opposed Sukarno, in contrast to other Indonesian exiles at the time such as Sudjatmoko who adopted a policy of partial collaboration.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was appointed as Minister of Trade in the First Development Cabinet on 6 June 1968, replacing Mohammad Jusuf.

Shortly after his appointment Sumitro Djojohadikusumo noted that repairing economic mismanagement during the Sukarno era would take "something like a generation".

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo adopted Keynesian policies to stimulate new development in certain sectors.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo introduced restrictions on imports and created a "complementary foreign exchange" system to incentivize specific exports and discourage certain imports.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo encouraged a shift in imports from consumer goods to capital goods, while stating his intention to increase duties to generate government revenue.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was part of Suharto's economic advisory team in this period.

On 28 March 1973, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was reassigned as State Minister of Research in the Second Development Cabinet; Radius Prawiro replaced him as Minister of Trade.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo created a national research program involving several economics faculties and research institutes in the country to help formulate government economic policies by gaining an insight into the country's long-term growth prospects.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo did this as he was concerned that Suharto's five-year plans were not sufficiently taking into account long-term trends and visions.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo engaged in private business outside his government career, leveraging his political connections and foreign networks in Europe and the United States.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo founded Indoconsult Associates, one of the first business consulting firms in the country, with Mochtar Lubis in July 1967.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was a founding member of the academic group East Asian Economic Association in 1984 and served as its first president.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was significantly involved in the rise of the Astra conglomerate, when in 1968 he helped the company gain a sole distributorship of Toyota vehicles in the country.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was appointed president commissioner of Astra in 1992, when the debt-laden group faced a takeover attempt by a consortium of external conglomerates.

Suryajaya initially tasked Sumitro Djojohadikusumo with preventing the takeover, but Suryajaya eventually decided to sell his shares without first consulting Sumitro Djojohadikusumo.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo resigned in December 1992 and the takeover was completed by January 1993.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo then began to develop concerns on the structure of the Indonesian economy under Suharto as time went on.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo considered Indonesia's industry to be fundamentally fragile and apparently productive only at the surface level.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo saw the previous colonial economy as creating two separate systems: one of subsistence economics and another of commercial, and subscribed to the theories of W Arthur Lewis that low productivity generated from subsistence economics can be improved through the encouragement of industrialization.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo endorsed the development of cooperatives to develop the Indonesian rural economy.

In regards to government fiscal policy, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo wrote in support of a balanced budget primarily as a means of disciplining government expenditures, but was opposed to cuts in development spending.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo married Dora Marie Sigar, whom he had met during his time in the Netherlands, on 7 January 1945.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo's family had followed Sumitro into exile following PRRI's defeat.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo was an avid tennis player and a heavy smoker.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo had written 130 books and articles mostly on economic matters between 1942 and 1994, and published his autobiography in 2000.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo died just past midnight on 9 March 2001 at the Dharma Nugraha Hospital in Rawamangun, East Jakarta due to heart failure.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo had been suffering from a heart disease and atherosclerosis for some time.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo's critics describe him as a political opportunist, due to his distancing from former Socialist Party members during the Suharto period and his son Prabowo's marriage to Titiek.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo has been described by several authors as a highly influential economist in both the Sukarno and Suharto periods, and often as the most influential altogether.