Outlook For The 2023 Economy, Jokowi: The Situation Is Difficult, Standard Theory Can't Overcome Conditions Outside The Pakem

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that Indonesia is actually facing a situation that is not easy. The reason is, global uncertainty makes the projection in the future quite difficult to predict.

Standard theories are very difficult for us to use again because the current conditions have come out of existing standards. It's really a difficult situation," he said at the 2023 Indonesia Economic Outlook seminar on Wednesday, December 21.

According to the President, Indonesia was previously in 2014/2015 in the category of countries prone to slump along with five other countries. At that time, Indonesia posted a trade balance deficit of up to tens of billions. In fact, the state securities (SBN) were still quite largely controlled by foreign investors with a portion of 38 percent.

"Now there are only 14 percent left. Because, if there are still many foreigners, once there is a slight shaking they come out in droves. Here, we will definitely shake the exchange rate," he said.

For this reason, the Head of State continues to encourage economic structural reforms to be more resilient. In his notes, the current trade balance posted a surplus of 8.9 billion US dollars in the third quarter of 2022, equivalent to 0.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

"This means that the improvements are really real and can be seen from the existing numbers. I always ask (from the ministers) if they say it's better, I'll definitely ask for the numbers," he explained.

On this occasion, the President also asked his staff to continue to make efforts to downstream various strategic products and commodities in order to provide added value to the Indonesian economy.

"We have been sued a lot, but that's okay. We will continue because this is proven to provide positive results for our economy," he said.