印尼总统普拉博沃改任技术官僚 Suahasil Nazara 为财政部长，接替 Purbaya，市场解读为财政纪律回归的友好信号

Suahasil Nazara, Indonesia’s new finance minister, is an experienced insider and familiar face for investors, having served as a deputy over the past seven years.

President Prabowo Subianto’s move Monday to replace maverick Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa is the second surprise shake-up in the finance ministry in about a year, and appears to be calibrated to ease market concerns over the direction of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Nazara, 55, was appointed as deputy finance minister by former President Joko Widodo in 2019. He served under former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati — the widely respected economist who was fired to make room for Purbaya after clashing with Prabowo.

The choice of Nazara, an experienced domestic fiscal policy official, could “help restore market confidence and stabilize macro-fiscal management,” said Harry Su, managing director of research at PT Samuel Sekuritas Indonesia.

The appointment appeared to be welcomed by markets, with the benchmark stock index reversing most of the day’s losses.

Read More: Indonesia New Finance Minister a Sign of Prudence, Analysts Say

The move comes amid growing friction over revenue targets, budget implementation and policy coordination, including government fund transfers to the regions and contributions from the wealth fund Danantara, Su said.

The appointment is likely to ensure stability in fiscal policy and limit transition risks given Nazara’s long-standing role at the ministry, according to Irman Faiz, chief economist at PT Bank Danamon in Jakarta. His technocratic background also provides institutional continuity in managing the state budget, he said.

Nazara’s bigger challenge, however, will be the same as his predecessors’: balancing Prabowo’s ambitious growth agenda with increasingly constrained fiscal space. That will require preserving credibility, while shifting spending away from programs that have limited payoff for the economy, Faiz said.

The government is targeting 6% economic growth and a fiscal deficit of 2.4% of GDP in 2027, while Bank Danamon forecasts 5.1% growth and a deficit of about 2.75% — still within the statutory 3% limit.

Nazara was reappointed as deputy finance minister under Prabowo in October 2024. He earlier served as head of the Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Agency from 2016 to 2019, after becoming acting head in 2015.

Nazara began his career as an economics lecturer at the University of Indonesia in 1999 and became a professor in 2009. He held several academic and policy positions, including head of the university’s economics department, and worked on fiscal decentralization, regional autonomy and poverty reduction. He also served on the National Economic Committee from 2013 to 2014.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Indonesia, a master’s degree from Cornell University and a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.