Ministry Of Finance: Economic Resilience Brings Poverty Towards Pre-pandemic Level

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) stated that national economic resilience is maintained and remains strong with a growth rate of more than 5 percent.

Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) of the Ministry of Finance Febrio Kacaribu said the achievement was then reflected on reducing the poverty rate to pre-pandemic levels.

Febrio explained that data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) earlier this week stated that poverty continued its downward trend to 9.36 percent as of March 2023 (September 2022: 9.57 percent).

This is much better after touching double digits due to the pandemic crisis. This figure is already lower than the pre-pandemic figure as of March 2019 which was 9.41 percent, although it was still slightly above the pre-pandemic low as of September 2019 which was 9.22 percent," he said in a press release Tuesday, July 18.

Febrio explained that the number of poor people in March 2023 was 25.90 million people, down 0.46 million people from September 2022.

Accumulatively, from March 2021 to March 2023 there were 1.6 million people who managed to get out of the poverty line. Spatially, the poverty rate as of March 2023 decreased both in urban areas and in rural areas.

The decline in poverty in March 2023 is in line with the continued strengthening of economic activity, decreasing unemployment, and increasingly controlled inflation. In addition, the distribution of social assistance in the first quarter of 2023 is also effective with the realization of the Family Hope Program (PKH) reaching 89.3 percent, while the basic food cards reach 86.5 percent," he said.

According to Febrio, in March 2023 the government also rolled out additional rice food assistance in order to maintain access to food for poor and vulnerable households and maintain food price stability.

It is stated that the state is here to accelerate economic growth, create wider job opportunities, and maintain inflationary stability so that it can accelerate the reduction in poverty levels to below pre-pandemic levels.

"This trend of poverty reduction is in line with the government's short-term policy focus to accelerate the reduction in extreme poverty to 0 percent in 2024. In the long term, poverty reduction will be a foothold to achieve Indonesia's goal of becoming a high-income country before 2045," closed Febrio.