Sarinah Plaza

Sarinah was incorporated on 17 August 1962 as PT Department Store Indonesia "Sarinah". In the early 1960s, Indonesia was hit by very high inflation rates. President Soekarno believed that a department store would act as a price stabilizer to help keep prices under control, a view he formed after visiting several communist capitals including Moscow, Prague and Warsaw. The first store in Jakarta was built by Obayashi Corporation using Japanese war reparation funds, and opened in August 1966. The project was conceived by President Soekarno, who named it Sarinah after his childhood nanny. However, it failed almost immediately in this role as there was a limit to what one store or even a few stores could do in such a large country. Sarinah struggled to compete with other retailers and went into debt as it expanded aggressively into other cities in Indonesia. In the early 1970s, in an effort to survive, Sarinah moved its focus to local handicrafts, especially Batik. It was renamed into the present name in 1979.