Sri Mulyani Breaks Media Silence — on YouTube

Jakarta Globe, June 14, 2010

Former Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati pictured in a World Bank Youtube video.

Former Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has used YouTube to break her media silence after taking up her lucrative role as a director of the World Bank.

In the five-minute clip, posted quietly by the World Bank on June 8, Sri Mulyani does not address the Bank Century bailout scandal that ultimately led to her departure from Indonesia but does say that her experience as a policy maker in “a diverse and complex country” would help her make a productive contribution in her new role.

“A lot of new issues like climate change, energy and food security issues are becoming a new environment for the World Bank to become more relevant but at the same time it should be a result-oriented institution,” she says.

“I’m ready to use my experience as a finance minister and policy maker from a diverse and complex country like Indonesia to join this bank and I hope I can make a productive contribution here.”

Sri Mulyani added that developing countries were currently driving the global economy in the wake of the US-led economic crisis and the European debt crisis.

She said that as a finance minister, she not only had to deal with markets and infrastructure, but also other issues such as governance.

“Even if you call a country a middle-income country, in fact you still have a high level of poverty, and this creates a challenging policy task for any policy maker ....”