Didik Rachbini: Targeting The Economy To Grow 5.5 Percent Next Year, That's Hard!

JAKARTA - Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) senior economist Didik Rachbini emphasized that the government's efforts from the health side, in this case in controlling the COVID-19 case, will be the key to Indonesia's economic growth in 2021.

"It is actually not feasible to plan for a growth of 5 to 5.5 percent next year in a state where COVID-19 is still like this," Didik said as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 19.

Didik said that this must be done because the government is targeting a high enough growth for the Indonesian economy next year, which is around 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

On the other hand, Didik said that the COVID-19 cases in Indonesia were still high and even increasing every day along with the massive tests.

Not only that, the Indonesian economy, which only contracted by 5.32 percent in the second quarter of 2020, is also a challenge in achieving the growth target next year.

"I think that apart from doing (the target) the figure of 5 to 5.5 percent is playing games, the policy on the pandemic is also playing games. So, in my opinion, this is hard," he said.

Meanwhile, the Special Staff of the Minister of Finance Masyita Crystallin said that there has actually been a reversal of economic indicators, one of which is PMI.

"One of the PMI indicators is starting to have a reversal of direction. April to this month is still in contraction but has begun to reverse," he said.

Masyita explained that the government has also made efforts to prepare aspects in encouraging the achievement of the economic growth target next year, namely through the preparation of the 2021 RAPBN.

"The core 2021 fiscal policies are three, namely macroeconomic stability, income redistribution, and resource allocation," he said.

In addition, according to Masyita, the hope that a COVID-19 vaccine will be found and can be disseminated will also be a supporting factor for achieving the 2021 economic growth target.

"We hope that next year there will be good news about the discovery of a vaccine. But as a government, we have to make various middle and bad scenarios if a vaccine has not been found," he said.