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INDONESIA’S Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno is willing to cut the budget of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy by the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati for the COVID-19 vaccine program. However, Sandiaga submitted special conditions to Sri Mulyani.
“I said to the Minister of Finance, we can be willing to cut it but we want affirmation. So the vaccine that is given priority to tourism and creative economy actors and geographers who really need vaccination is like Bali,” Sandiaga said in a virtual discussion on Tuesday ( 2/2).
According to him, Bali has been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason is, almost all of the people’s economies rely on tourism. This can be seen from the economic growth of Bali which is minus 12%. It never happened before. Bali Bombings 1 and 2, the monetary crisis, the global crisis, the Balinese economy never had minus 12%.
“Bali’s economic growth until the third quarter of 2020 has contracted up to 12.28%. Throughout 2020, Bank Indonesia has estimated that Bali’s economy will touch the level of minus 8.5-9.5%,” he said.
He added, besides that, I hope to pay more attention to other tourist attractions such as Batam, Bintan, Banyuwangi, Joglo Semar, Bromo Tengger Semeru, West Java to the Thousand Islands of DKI Jakarta which are also affected by the pandemic.
“So we want a little partisanship from the sectors that are truly affected. How many hundreds of thousands of creative economy and tourism actors are affected. Currently, the Ministry of Tourism continues to encourage data collection on tourism and creative economy actors who are strong, verified and validated,” he noted.
He also explained, I hope that if it can be implemented, it will contribute to the recovery of the national economy. If we can execute this well we will bring back tourism and the creative economy and bring back Indonesia’s economy.
Previously, Sandiaga Uno said that saving 34 million jobs in the tourism sector and the creative economy was the responsibility of all stakeholders. To save and prepare steps for the revival of this sector in 2021 and beyond. [bisnis.com/photo special]
