Citi analyst rebuked by Indonesia finance chief for lacking PhD

JAKARTA - Indonesia took aim at a Citigroup economist for a report that said its budget deficit risks breaching the legal limit in 2026, highlighting growing pressure on global banks over research that governments consider unfavourable.

In unusually pointed remarks at a business forum in Jakarta on Feb 3, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said Citi’s Helmi Arman, who penned the report and has two master’s degrees, was “not a real economist” because he lacked a doctoral degree.

“You should ask a PhD,” Dr Purbaya said, pointing to himself in an on-stage interview with Bloomberg TV correspondent Haslinda Amin at the forum.

Citi declined to comment.

The episode underscores the heightened sensitivity among policymakers in South-east Asia’s largest economy as they try to prevent another sell-off in the nation’s bonds and equities.

It is also the second incident in recent weeks where a top finance official took aim at bank analysts, following US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s takedown of a Deutsche Bank report.

Retaliation is also not new in Indonesia, where the government cut ties with JPMorgan Chase & Co a decade ago after the bank downgraded its assessment of the nation’s equities.

Indonesia’s Finance Ministry stopped using JPMorgan as a primary dealer and as an underwriter of its sovereign bonds.

In the latest January report, Citi raised its 2026 budget deficit forecast for Indonesia to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product from an initial estimate of 2.7 per cent, taking it beyond the 3 per cent ceiling enshrined in the law in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

The bank forecast that President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meals programme could reach full scale in 2026, pushing costs to about US$18 billion (S$22.9 billion). Rebuilding flood-hit provinces could cost the nation another US$3.6 billion, it added.

The report by Citi came after the fiscal deficit blew out to 2.92 per cent in 2025, far in excess of the original target of 2.53 per cent and a revised goal of 2.78 per cent. Data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 2005 shows the deficit ratio was the highest on record outside the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

“I don’t want to surpass the 3 per cent level because the media will crucify me and tell everybody that I don’t know my job,” Dr Purbaya said. “I don’t want to play around with that for the time being.”

Mr Arman joined Citi in 2011, after stints at Bank Danamon Indonesia and Bahana Sekuritas and the ASEAN Secretariat. He holds master’s degrees in international money and banking from the University of Birmingham, as well as financial economics from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

“I’m the minister, not him,” said Dr Purbaya, who finished his master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Purdue University in Indiana. “I understand fiscal policy very, very, very well.” BLOOMBERG