The Health Sector Is Still A Government's Attention, Sri Mulyani Begins To Prepare The 2023 State Budget: Prepared Carefully

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that the government had opened discussions related to the preparation of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN) for the 2023 period.

It was revealed that one of the frameworks was efforts to revise the state budget to return to a deficit level of below 3 percent, as stated in Law Number 2 of 2020 concerning State Finances during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

"Law Number 2/2020 will be our basis for preparing the APBN and this is done very carefully," he said at a press conference via virtual channels after attending a meeting with the President at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday, February 16.

According to the Minister of Finance, the health sector remains the government's concern in a situation that still does not show certainty.

"The government continues to pay attention to the threat of a pandemic which we hope will increasingly turn into endemic or normal," he said.

The Minister of Finance added that Indonesia was quite successful in carrying out economic recovery measures. This can be seen from the 2021 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) book which has exceeded the level before the pandemic occurred.

This situation has prompted the government to be more optimistic in compiling the state budget for the 2023 period with the provision of a deficit below 3 percent.

"This is a fairly fast recovery, which is only five quarters before we can return to GDP before the COVID-19 disaster. Many neighboring countries in ASEAN and emerging countries in the world have not yet reached the pre-covid level," he said.

Furthermore, the former boss of the IMF and World Bank believes that the burden on the APBN will not be as heavy as in previous years by optimizing potential sectors that can accelerate growth.

"Therefore, the 2023 macroeconomic policy will encourage recovery that comes from sources of growth that do not only depend on the state budget alone. The state budget will still be supportive but now the role of non-APBN is important," he said.

The Minister of Finance himself has explicitly stated that the government has targeted the economic growth range of 5.3 percent to 5.9 percent in the upcoming 2023 State Budget.