Indonesia's Creative Economy Master Plan 2026–2045 and the "Jakarta Vision"
Why now: the conference came home
WCCE 2026 opened in Jakarta on 21 October and ran to 23 October. The main sessions were held at Hotel Indonesia Kempinski, and a public “Creativillage” in the SCBD district ran on to 25 October. Its theme was “Inclusively Creative: Collective Continuity”. The ministry reports delegations from more than 80 countries and seven international organisations, including 38 heads of delegation.
The programme featured seven parts: a Friends of Creative Economy meeting, a ministerial meeting, a plenary, creative sessions, a “Creativillage” showcase, bilateral meetings (B2B, G2G and G2B) and an official dinner. The weight given to bilateral meetings and business matching signalled that Jakarta wanted agreements it could count, not only declarations.
The timing was deliberate. The conference doubled as a showcase for Jakarta ahead of the city’s 500th anniversary in 2027. It also landed less than four months after Indonesia gave its creative economy a 20-year plan set in a presidential regulation.
What Rindekraf is
Presidential Regulation No. 37 of 2026, signed on 2 July 2026, sets out the Creative Economy Master Plan (Rencana Induk Ekonomi Kreatif, or Rindekraf) for 2026–2045. It implements Article 25(6) of Law No. 24 of 2019 on the Creative Economy, which called for such a plan, and binds ministries and regional governments to align their own strategic plans with it.
Its architecture has five parts:
Four clusters, 21 subsectors. Subsectors are grouped into arts and culture; design; technology and digital content; and media and creative distribution. The previous framework counted 17 subsectors.
Four new subsectors. Emerging technologies, digital content and voice-over services join the technology and digital content cluster. Automotive modification joins the design cluster.
Four phases over twenty years. 2026–2029, 2030–2034, 2035–2039 and 2040–2045. Each later phase gets its own action plan by presidential regulation, informed by an evaluation at the end of the phase before.
Eight priority programmes, the “Asta Ekonomi Kreatif”. Ekraf Data, Ekraf Bijak (policy), Talenta Ekraf (talent), Infra Ekraf (infrastructure), Ekraf Kaya (intellectual property), Dana Ekraf (finance), Pasar Ekraf (markets) and Sinergi Ekraf (synergy), framed across the value chain from creation to conservation.
A coordination team at coordinating-minister level. The Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment chairs the steering body, with three other coordinating ministers as deputies, including the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture. The Minister of Creative Economy runs day-to-day coordination, monitoring and reporting.
The ministry describes the drafting, which began in March 2025, as participatory and “hexa-helix”: government, academia, business, communities, media and financial institutions. It says it has signed around 63 memoranda of understanding with partners so far.
The numbers behind the bet
Indonesia’s creative economy already accounts for more than 7% of GDP, and the government reports it is growing faster than the economy as a whole.
| Indicator | Figure | Period · source |
|---|---|---|
| Creative economy exports | US$7.38 billion (27% of the annual target) | Q1 2026 · ministry |
| Share of non-oil-and-gas exports | 11.8% | March 2026 · ministry, citing BPS |
| Share of GDP · sector growth | 7.38% · 6.86% (national GDP growth: 5.11%) | 2025 · ministry |
| Exports · realised investment | US$31.94 billion · Rp183 trillion | 2025 · ministry |
| Share of GDP | 7.28% (Rp1,611.2 trillion) | 2024 · BPS |
Two features stand out. First, the export engine is an old one: fashion, crafts and culinary supplied the largest export shares in early 2026. Second, the ambition is steep. The ministry aims to lift the creative economy’s share of GDP to 8.0–8.4% by 2029, the end of the plan’s first phase.
This is the plan’s central tension. Rindekraf’s additions are digital and service-based; the measured performance it builds on is goods-based and rooted in heritage.
Reading the new subsectors: what a wider definition buys, and what it costs
The ministry’s own descriptions show how far the boundary has moved. “Emerging technologies” covers AI, blockchain, big data and cybersecurity. “Digital content” covers content creators, but also affiliate marketers and live commerce. “Voice-over” recognises professional voice talent for audiovisual work. Automotive modification is valued for design, engineering and vehicle personalisation.
What it buys. The expansion brings fast-growing, visible activity into the ministry’s remit. Creators, dubbing and localisation talent, and a large custom-car culture gain access to programmes, finance and IP support. Naming AI as a creative economy subsector also gives the ministry standing in AI policy debates that usually belong to digital ministries.
What it costs. Every change of scope breaks a time series. If the 2029 target of 8.0–8.4% of GDP is measured on a 21-subsector base, while the 2024 baseline of 7.28% was measured on 17, part of any rise will be definitional rather than real. Affiliate marketing and live commerce are retail activity; cybersecurity is a technology service. Counting them could lift the creative economy’s measured size without any change in what artists, designers or filmmakers produce.
The problem extends across borders. Few of the new subsectors have clean equivalents in UNCTAD’s trade-based framework or in neighbouring countries’ national lists. Meanwhile ASEAN is assembling a regional baseline for its proposed Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries.
None of this argues against the expansion. It argues for publishing the bridge: figures on both the 17- and 21-subsector bases for an overlap period, and a mapping of the 21 subsectors to international codes. The first of the plan’s eight programmes is data. At WCCE the ministry also launched a Creative Economy Data Model developed with WIPO, which makes the question of how it bridges old and new definitions more pressing, not less. How Indonesia handles this reconciliation will show whether better data means better measurement or simply bigger numbers. A later post in this series returns to the measurement question.
From Bali to Jakarta: Indonesia as agenda-setter
Indonesia has used WCCE to build international norms since it launched the conference in 2018. Each edition has carried the same “Inclusively Creative” brand.
| Edition | Year | Host city | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5th | 2026 | Jakarta | Inclusively Creative: Collective Continuity |
| 4th | 2024 | Tashkent | Inclusively Creative: Shifted Reality |
| 3rd | 2022 | Bali | Inclusively Creative: A Global Recovery |
| 2nd | 2021 | Dubai | Inclusively Creative: Cultivating the Future |
| 1st | 2018 | Bali | Inclusively Creative |
The first Bali conference produced the Bali Agenda for Creative Economy (21 roadmaps), the Friends of Creative Economy group and a proposed global centre of excellence. It also built momentum for the 2019 UN General Assembly resolution that declared 2021 the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. A further General Assembly resolution on the creative economy followed in December 2023. Tashkent in 2024 put artificial intelligence at the centre of the agenda.
The Jakarta Vision on Creative Economy is the next step in that sequence. At the conference’s ministerial meeting, delegations adopted the text. It sets four priorities: wider access to technology and digital infrastructure, sustained collaboration among creators, intellectual property protection, and fair remuneration with wider access to finance and investment. Indonesia says it will work with partners to take the text to the UN General Assembly as the basis for a follow-up resolution.
Indonesia’s ties with UNCTAD are part of the same strategy. Ahead of the event, the ministry reported that it had agreed with UNCTAD to collaborate on the Creative Economy Outlook 2026, which was slated for release in October, and to co-organise an international programme at WCCE. That proximity gives Indonesia a voice in how the global creative economy is described. It also invites readers to watch how the Outlook treats Indonesia’s own figures and its new definition.
Two regional anchors: Jakarta and Manila
Indonesia’s push coincides with the Philippines’ 2026 ASEAN chairship, which has made an ASEAN Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries (ACE-CI) one of its Priority Economic Deliverables. Leaders are expected to endorse ACE-CI at the 49th ASEAN Summit in Manila in November, and it could be operational by 2027.
So far the two capitals look complementary rather than competing. Indonesia has publicly backed hosting ACE-CI in Manila, while WCCE itself moves to Glasgow in 2028. A division of labour is emerging: Jakarta convenes the global conversation and seeks UN-level language, while Manila hosts a regional institution for policy research, capacity building and market development.
The risk lies in the evidence base. ACE-CI is validating a regional baseline, Indonesia is redrawing its national scope, and UNCTAD has been preparing a new Outlook. If these three exercises use different definitions, ASEAN will gain more creative economy numbers but less ability to compare them.
What to judge after WCCE 2026, and what it means for ASEAN–Korea cooperation
With the Jakarta gathering now concluded, four questions will determine whether WCCE 2026 moved beyond a showcase:
The Jakarta Vision text. Its four headline priorities cover technology access, creator collaboration, IP, and fair pay and finance; data and measurement are not among them. Does the full text add commitments there, and how far does it go on AI and creators’ rights? Tashkent already put AI at the centre; a vision that treats it only as a matter of access would be a step back.
The UN route. Will a sponsor group form for a new General Assembly resolution, and which ASEAN members will join it?
The UNCTAD Outlook. Has the Creative Economy Outlook 2026 been released, and how does it handle national changes of definition such as Indonesia’s?
Deals or declarations. How many of the bilateral and business-matching meetings ended in announced agreements, and in which subsectors?
For Korean partners, Rindekraf offers concrete entry points. Its technology and digital content cluster, its programmes on IP and financing, and its focus on regions as growth hubs match areas where Korean institutions have long experience: content IP development, dubbing and localisation, and regional creative clusters.
The most durable contribution may be methodological. Co-developing statistical bridges and comparable indicators with Indonesian partners would serve both the plan’s data programme and ASEAN’s emerging regional baseline. This series will examine the Jakarta Vision’s full text and the conference’s concrete outcomes in its year-end review on 4 December.
Sources
The master plan
- Perpres 37/2026: Rencana Induk Ekonomi Kreatif — JDIH Kemenko Infra, 30 July 2026
- Rindekraf Expands Indonesia’s Creative Economy to 21 Subsectors — Ministry of Creative Economy, 10 July 2026
Performance figures
- RI Dapat Rp 61,3 Triliun dari Sektor Ekraf di Triwulan I 2026 — detikFinance, 8 July 2026
- Riefky Harsya: The Creative Economy New Engine of National Growth — RRI, 21 July 2026
WCCE and the UN track
- WCCE 2026, Indonesia’s Initiative for Global Creative Economy Growth — Ministry of Creative Economy, 6 May 2026
- Recognition for Indonesia’s Creative Economy Advancement, UNCTAD: Indonesia Becomes a Reference for Developing Countries — Ministry of Creative Economy
- WCCE 2026 Sepakati Jakarta Vision on Creative Economy, Bakal Dibawa ke PBB — Kumparan, October 2026
- WCCE 2026 Luncurkan 3 Inisiatif Strategis Ekonomi Kreatif — Beritasatu, October 2026
- Glasgow Jadi Tuan Rumah 2028, WCCE 2026 Resmi Ditutup — VOI, October 2026
The regional picture
- ASEAN Convenes Validation Workshop to Advance Establishment of ACE-CI — ASEAN Secretariat, 13 August 2026
- Indonesia, Philippines boost creative economy cooperation across ASEAN — ANTARA, 31 August 2026