In his state-of-nation address to celebrate Indonesia's 67th birthday, President Yudhoyono has highlighted Indonesia's growing importance as an economic power in the world. Clearly, he was not just being boastful and for some time now, people have been talking of Indonesia possibly edging India out of the so-called BRICS bloc, and it is not hard to see why many have been upbeat about Indonesia in the most recent years. It has sailed through the 2008-09 great financial crisis rather steadily and continued to post growth that many other countries could only dream of (its latest growth number in Q2 2012 is among the highest globally).

Everything appears to be good so far.