Jusuf Kalla, Sri Mulyani And Economists Handed The Republic Of Indonesia Kebal Recession: The Possibility Is Only 3 Percent

JAKARTA - Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla (JK) revealed that Indonesia was able to overcome the economic pressure in 2023 which is believed to be stronger than in the 2022 period.

According to him, a number of countries are now faced with global recession challenges due to the increase in inflation followed by rising interest rates, causing economic growth to decline.

"I don't think there are anything that will lead us to that crisis. I think it's the same in ASEAN. It's different with countries in Europe," said JK while attending a business forum in Jakarta in the middle of this week.

For these developments, JK encourages the government to provide greater space for business actors to get through difficult times as well as contribute to the national economy.

"Entrepreneurs must work well, make investments and the government must provide better opportunities," he said.

Previously, the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani emphasized that Indonesia's chances of experiencing a recession were almost nil at all.

"We are relatively in a situation with a risk (recession) of 3 percent," he said some time ago.

The same view was also expressed by economic observer from the University of Indonesia (UI) Fithra Faisal. He explained that the phenomenon of slowing down the world economy in the year might not be avoided.

Even so, Fithra said that the threat was not a scourge for Indonesia. Moreover, the government has valuable capital from last year with 5.31 percent economic growth year on year (yoy). According to him, this figure is quite good amid the world's economic prospects which continue to slope in the range of 2-3 percent.

"Obviously (economic growth this year) is lower than 2022. Why? Because external pressure is still quite significant. Even so, this slowdown doesn't make us too slow either. We are still quite strong, but we still have to anticipate. Maybe there is a slower growth but it's not significant (recession)," he told VOI.

Our forecast, the economy in 2023 will only grow 5.1 percent. Forecast, the World Bank is around 4.8 and Bank Indonesia is 4.9 percent. This can still be accepted because the fall (economic growth) is not far from the government's assumption of 4.5 percent to 5.3 percent if you look at the scale of events that occur globally," said Fithra.