REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Indonesia is digging into thousands of years of rich, creative culture and history to push itself forward faster into the 21st century. "It's about ideas and new ones," says Mari Pangestu, in charge of Indonesia's new Ministry for Tourism and Creative Economy, set up just three months ago.

Pangestu told CNBC that creative economy includes everything from restaurants, fashion, music, theatre, industrial design, publishing, spa, and arts and crafts. This kind of activities, she said, already accounts for about 7 percent of Indonesia's economy.

She wants to boost that share by more than half, to over 11 percent of GDP, over the next decade or so. That would be worth what agriculture is now to Indonesia's still largely oil and commodity based economy.

Pangestu plans to create an ecosystem that supports start-ups. "We want to tap what is inherently a creative culture for ideas, commercialize them, and scale them up," says Pangestu.

She points to the success South Korea has had in digital entertainment and pop culture, both of which have become huge exports. In Indonesia, she sees clusters of creative economic activity already brewing in places like Bandung, and Bali, and wants to create the same kind of buzz in other Indonesian cities. 

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