Sri Mulyani: Global Recovery From COVID-19 Impact Must Be Balanced Across Countries

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati stressed that the global recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has entered its second year should be balanced across the country.

It was delivered at the 2021 International Monetary Fund-World Bank Group Spring Meeting (2021 IMF-WBG Spring Meetings) on April 5-11, 2021 virtually.

"There are still challenges to the global recovery imbalance. A number of countries are projected to grow positively in 2021 while countries that are hit harder have much lower projections", she said in an official statement, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, April 14.

According to Sri Mulyani, driving factors such as vaccination programs, policy support, and the global economic outlook are improving but have not been able to level the recovery across the country.

Therefore, Sri Mulyani encouraged the World Bank and IMF to continue collaborating with various partners, namely international institutions and the private sector as well as all countries in the world.

She explained that the collaboration aims to improve access to vaccines, manage financing burdens, and implement economic growth recovery strategies.

She said the realization of a comprehensive and sustainable global economic recovery will be able to encourage job creation and improve welfare.

As for Indonesia, Sri Mulyani ensures that the government continues to pay attention and focus on improving the quality of human resources.

Such attention is shown in the form of coordinated investment in public service delivery systems in order to build, protect, and optimize human resources.

She said public finances play a role in investing in human resources, including vaccination programs, improving health services by utilizing technology, and social protection.

"These priorities in addition to supporting recovery also facilitate economic transformation", she said.