Indonesia: A G20 Nation with the Most Closed Service Sector

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assessed that the liberalization of global services trade generally strengthened throughout 2021.

However, until February 2022, Indonesia was considered to have the most significant barriers to trade in the services sector, or the "most closed," among G20 countries.

OECD's Methodology for Assessing Services Trade Liberalization

In the *Services Trade Restrictiveness Index* (STRI), the OECD assesses countries based on the number of policies restricting international services trade.

The policies used for assessment relate to restrictions on foreign ownership, restrictions on the movement of people, barriers to business competition, regulatory transparency, and other discriminatory actions in international services trade.

The level of trade barriers is also measured across various service sectors, including computer services, construction, professional services, telecommunications, audio-visual services, transportation, courier services, financial services, and logistics.

The OECD then applies an assessment with a score range of 0-1, where "0" means completely free trade, while "1" means trade with the strictest barriers.

Based on the above assessment indicators and scoring system, OECD data shows that Indonesia received a median score of 0.429 and ranked lowest among G20 countries in terms of services trade liberalization.

Details of the median score for services trade liberalization in G20 countries:

1. Japan: 0.151
2. Germany: 0.153
3. United Kingdom: 0.153
4. France: 0.171
5. South Korea: 0.173
6. Australia: 0.179
7. Canada: 0.197
8. United States: 0.199
9. Italy: 0.257
10. South Africa: 0.263
11. Mexico: 0.271
12. Turkey: 0.285
13. China: 0.291
14. Brazil: 0.326
15. India: 0.352
16. Russia: 0.359
17. Indonesia: 0.429

Some other G20 countries were not included in the OECD assessment, namely Saudi Arabia and Argentina. The European Union, as a supranational organization and a G20 member, was also not counted because its member states were already assessed separately by the OECD.