Economy, Services

Services are an important part of Indonesia’s economy, producing 36 percent of the GDP in 2000. During the 1990s services expanded at a rate of 8.6 percent per year, more than twice as fast as agriculture. Services are made up of trade; restaurants and hotels; government services; transport, storage, and communications; and finance, insurance, real estate, and business services.

Indonesia’s service sector is complemented by its other economic sectors. Air transportation, financial, and insurance service have increased rapidly to keep up with the expanding manufacturing sector. Hotel development has been boosted by the growth of tourism. In 2000, 5 million tourists visited Indonesia. Most visitors were from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, and the United States.

Many workers are involved in informal service occupations. These workers include riders of trishaws (three-wheeled cycles with a seat for a peddler and a separate compartment for passengers), people selling food at markets, itinerant hawkers of various wares, and garbage recyclers. The workers are generally poor and the jobs are often unregulated and unrecorded in official statistics; nonetheless, informal occupations provide employment for a large proportion of the labor force in the larger cities.