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INDONESIAN Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati stated that Indonesia’s current challenge is to combine rebound and recovery against an economy that has been depressed due to the impact of COVID-19.
“One of our challenges this year is that we can combine rebound and recovery,” said Minister Sri Mulyani in a working meeting with Commission XI of the Indonesian House of Representatives in Jakarta, Monday (8/30).
Sri Mulyani explained that the rebound itself means that the economy is growing high because of the low achievement base in the previous quarter.
For example, the Indonesian economy in the second quarter of this year managed to soar up to 7.07% (yoy) because one of the factors was that in the second quarter of 2020 it experienced a contraction of minus 5.32% (yoy).
Meanwhile, to create a quality economy, he said Indonesia must be able to rebound as well as recover, namely the driving force for the economy to recover and be better.
“Rebound could be just because the base is low but it doesn’t translate into recovery. People can rebound without recovery just because their pick-up base is low,” said Sri Mulyani.
Therefore, he emphasized that this combination must be realized considering the PPKM policy has also caused almost all aspects of supporting the economy to be paralyzed again after experiencing improvements.
“The third quarter experienced a correction from various indicators. We hope that maybe September can still catch up because in July we experience PPKM throughout the month and August for up to two weeks,” said Sri Mulyani.
He also hopes that the PPKM policy, which has begun to be lowered, especially for Java and Bali, from level 4 to level 3, can slowly normalize people’s economic activities.
For the whole year, Sri Mulyani said that the outlook for the national economy is in the range of 3.7% to 4.5% with a record that the third quarter, especially September, is able to recover and grow normally. When viewed from the component of aggregate demand, Indonesian consumption is estimated to only grow 2.2% to 2.8% because in the second quarter of 2021 it surged but the fourth quarter was depressed due to PPKM.
“In the fourth quarter, when Christmas and New Year are usually quite increased again. If COVID-19 does not threaten us, we can get full capitalizing or take advantage of the momentum of the fourth quarter,” said Minister Sri Mulyani. [antaranews]
