![A villager taps a rubber tree, Lubuk Beringin village, Bungo district, Jambi province, Indonesia (Photo by Tri Saputro for the Center for International Forestry Research).](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/l_indonesia_rubber_10272015_1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. A prolonged commodities slump has caused Indonesia’s economy to slow drastically. Last year, Indonesia saw its slowest growth rate since 2002; the currency lost 11 percent of its value; and trade levels were at their lowest since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. In an email interview, Arianto Patunru, a fellow in the Arndt-Corden department of economics at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, discussed Indonesia’s economy and its dependence on commodities […]