Deflation Of 5 Months In A Row, Sri Mulyani: This Is A Positive Thing

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati believes that the deflation experienced by Indonesia in five consecutive months is a positive thing. Because the deflation that occurs is caused by the volatile food price where the price of food ingredients is in stable condition.

"So, if the last five months of deflation is mainly contributed by the decline in food prices, in my opinion, it is a positive development, especially for people's purchasing power, especially in consumer communities, especially the lower middle class," he told reporters, Friday, October 4.

Sri Mulyani said that based on the inflation composition side. The government continues to strive to keep inflation low because it determines purchasing power. Because, inflation was previously influenced by volatile food.

"The high increase in inflation since last year was because it was heavily influenced by food or food," he said.

According to Sri Mulyani, if the volatile food is not handled properly, it will greatly affect people's purchasing power, because the average money used for consumption.

"So if food prices are stable or even decrease because at that time they did increase, it is a positive thing," he said.

Sri Mulyani said that deflation had experienced for 5 consecutive months due to controlling volatile food.

"On the one hand, the decline comes from volatile food, it is indeed something we hope can create food price levels at a low stable level, it is good for consumers in Indonesia who are especially medium-sized that the majority of the expenditure is for food," he said.

Sri Mulyani emphasized that suppressing volatile food people's purchasing power can be maintained, and is a positive thing for the economy.

"So in this case we respond as a positive thing, especially from a fiscal point of view, we use the fiscal APBN first to stabilize our spending price for food, in this case assistance in the form of social assistance in the form of giving chickens, eggs, rice, at that time the goal was to reduce the burden," he concluded.