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Indonesia's Middle Class Comes of Age

From FT.com

Dini Shanti, a web marketer, struggled for years to pay the rent and put food on the table for her two children.

Yet in the past 24 months she has moved into a new home, bought her retired father a car and begun paying into investment funds and a life assurance policy.

Her rapid climb to financial security was, until recently, a rare story in Indonesia, a young democracy of nearly 240m people and one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies. But in the coming decade, more than 60m low-income workers are poised to join her in what will be the coming of age of Indonesia’s middle class.

That projected boom will also make Indonesia - already a member of the Group of 20 nations and the largest south-east Asian economy - the fastest-growing consumer market after India and China. Big retailers, banks, carmakers, insurers and consumer goods producers are tapping the growth, posting record profits this year.

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