Coordinating Minister Airlangga Pede Ekonomi Grows High Despite The Rising Fuel Price

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto expressed optimism that the national economic recovery will continue.

According to him, Indonesia's economic growth in the third quarter of 2022 could reach 5.4 percent year on year (yoy). It is stated that the projection will complete the realization of growth of gross domestic product (GDP) above 5 percent for three consecutive times and exceed global growth.

"Although currently still overshadowed by global uncertainty, the government believes that the Indonesian economy will still be able to grow impressively and resiliently," he said in the middle of this week.

Airlangga added, in terms of inflation in August 2022 it was recorded at 4.69 percent and has improved compared to the inflation rate in July 2022 which was 4.94 percent. The success of reducing the inflation rate of volatile food is one of the factors in reducing inflation rates.

"Along the efforts of TPIP and TPID (Central Inflation Control Team/Regional) in carrying out extraordinary efforts to control inflation, we will continue to suppress volatile food inflation in order to achieve a commitment of 3 percent to 5 percent," he said.

Furthermore, according to President Joko Widodo's direction, Airlangga revealed that the government's response to the adjustment of fuel prices in early September was to provide three types of additional social cushions with a total budget of Rp24.17 trillion.

Meanwhile, the social cushion includes direct cash assistance (BLT), wage subsidy assistance (BSU), and the use of 2 percent of public transfer funds (DTU) by local governments to assist the transportation sector such as public transportation, motorcycle taxis, fishermen, and provide additional social services.

The provision of various social pads is expected to protect people's purchasing power from the pressure of global price increases and also reduce poverty in Indonesia. In addition, we continue to monitor the movement of food commodity prices so that they can immediately anticipate if there is a price spike, as well as maintaining supply chains, especially food commodities," concluded Coordinating Minister Airlangga.