Purbaya Expresss Focus On Optimal Economic Growth, Not In 8 Percent Range

JAKARTA - President Prabowo Subianto officially inaugurated Purbaya Yudhi Sadivewa as Minister of Finance replacing Sri Mulyani, Monday, September 8.

Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadive explained that the main focus is not on pursuing economic growth targets of up to 8 percent, but on efforts to create economic growth as quickly and optimally as possible.

"It will not be pursued by 8 percent. We will pursue it as soon as we create the fastest growth, as optimally as possible. If you say it can't be tomorrow 8 (percent)? If I say I can do it. But we move that way," he told the media crew, Monday, September 8.

He conveyed that President Prabowo Subianto's directive was quite clear, namely reversing the economic direction and encouraging faster economic growth.

"First, I just found out earlier at half past two times, so I haven't had much thought about it. But the President's message is to turn the economy around, create faster economic growth, as soon as possible. That's what we will do in the future," he added.

He explained that the initial step was to evaluate the state's financial condition and identify instruments that could still be optimized to support the acceleration of economic growth.

"I will see in finance what is wrong, what instruments we can still optimize, there we will maximize so that the economy will run again. It's no longer a way, it's going faster. Later when the road is said to stop now," he said.

He also mentioned the tax ratio (tax ratio to GDP) which has been relatively constant and the increase in tax ratio cannot be done in a short time and to encourage this requires accelerating economic growth.

"Nothing, I'll just see what the point is. Only if you look at it, what is usually the constant one? The tax ratio is constant, the tax per GDP. Let's say we can't change in the near future, to increase the tax, we will accelerate the economic growth. That's roughly so," he explained.

When asked if there was a special direction regarding the formation of a state revenue agency, Purbaya said that President Prabowo had no specific directive regarding this matter.

"Nothing yet. I don't think I like it, I asked, sir, how about it, sir? Can I do it or not? That's about it. I don't know because I'm new, can that be a code or not?," he explained.

Purbaya menegaskan, dirinya akan tetap menghargai sistem yang sudah ada, alih-alih merombak besar-besaran.

“Jadi kita akan optimalkan sistem yang ada. Biasanya kalau kejelekan pemimpin baru gini, kalau pemimpin baru yang lama diobrek-obrek, buat baru lagi, soalnya mau bikin toenggak baru gitu kan. Saya Enggak akan seperti itu approach-nya, saya approach-nya adalah syarat yang ada, saya optimalkan sehingga sistem bisa bekerja dengan optimal yang berhenti-berhenti kita optimalkan, yang udah jalan kita percepat lagi," imbuhnya.

Dia menegaskan, ini bukan tentang mengganti mesin, tapi menyempurnakan mesin lama agar bisa bekerja lebih optimal.

"Jadi semuanya mesinnya bukan mesin baru, ini mesin lama tapi kita buat lebih bagus lagi ke depannya. Ini orang pintar-pintar semua sini," ujarnya.

Purbaya emphasized that he would still respect the existing system, instead of reshuffling it massively.

"So we will optimize the existing system. Usually, if the new leader is ugliness like this, if the old new leader is torn apart, make it new again, the problem is that he wants to make a new toe or not, right. I'm not going to be like that, the approach is the existing conditions, I optimize it so that the system can work optimally, we will stop optimizing it, we will speed it up again," he added.

He emphasized that this is not about changing machines, but perfecting old machines so they can work more optimally.

"So everything is not a new engine, it's an old machine but we make it even better in the future. These are all smart people here," he said.