Strengthening Local Potential for Sustainable Economic Development in Bengkulu City

Number of poor population in Bengkulu City is the highest among other regencies in Bengkulu Province. Development in Bengkulu City looks forward internally, but not changing the image as lagging region in Indonesia. Although the Human Development Index (HDI) of Bengkulu City is the highest in Bengkulu Province and more than the national average, it has not been beneficial for the Bengkulu City progress. Research objectives are: (1) to know the leading sector in Bengkulu City, (2) to know the chain of regional economic issues of Bengkulu City, and (3) to formulate a strategy of sustainable economic development in Bengkulu City. Method which is used in this research is literature study and descriptive analysis towards calculation results of location quotient (LQ), specialization index (SI), Theil entropy index (TEI), shift-share analysis, and Klassen typology based on gross domestic product (GDP) data. The results show that the most leading sector in Bengkulu City is company service, with LQ of 2.97 (2011); 3.02 (2012); and 2.96 (2013). The regional economic issues in Bengkulu City can not be separated by disparity of the leading sector, unspecialized of the leading sector, low competitiveness and lagged of the leading sector, coupled with increasing of poor population, not optimalized of HDI utilization, and low function of regional development key. Development strategy in Bengkulu City formulated through local potential empowerment, such as developing company service sector, increasing the company setor service competitiveness, and creating generative city relations. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd..