Indonesia Finance Chief Takes His Growth Bet to a World on Edge

Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa’s bluntness often jars. Some market watchers were taken aback in February when the Indonesian finance minister suggested a Citibank Inc. analyst with two master’s degrees wasn’t a true economist because he lacked a PhD. Last week, he called the World Bank’s 4.7% growth projection for this year a “major mistake.”

As Purbaya moves around Washington on his first overseas trip as finance chief, he does so against a backdrop of investors already frazzled by recently lowered credit outlooks from two ratings agencies, a warning from MSCI Inc. and mounting budget pressures driven by both President Prabowo Subianto’s spending and the blocked Strait of Hormuz.