Indonesia's new president, Prabowo Subianto, has taken office after being officially sworn in on Sunday. One of his first moves was to officially inaugurate a total of 48 ministers, with 22 new ministries and agencies, to help govern the country over the next five years.
Several of ministries have been created by merging and splitting previous ministries. For example, the Ministry of Research and Technology was reportedly split into three: the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Education, Research, and Technology.
The move is a hot topic in Indonesia, where investors have long complained about bureaucracy and inefficiency of government. For comparison, Vietnam has 17 ministries and Indonesia's neighbor, the Philippines, has 22.
Indonesia's parliament recently passed a new law granting Subianto more powers to restructure his cabinet. The old law included a legal limit to the number of ministries, allowing up to 34, but that limit has now been........