Highlighting Market Reaction Risks, Economist Criticizes Replacement Of Minister Of Finance
JAKARTA - Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) senior economist Fadhil Hasan, also responded regarding the change of Minister of Finance from Sri Mulyani Indrawati to Purbaya Yudhi Sadive.
According to Fadhil, Sri Mulyani has been recognized as a credible and trusted figure, both by the business world and international institutions, and is considered successful in maintaining Indonesia's fiscal policy to remain stable, prudent, and sustainable.
He said that this helped make Indonesia one of the countries that was considered capable of managing its economy well, and still attractive to investors.
However, he also noted that Sri Mulyani in recent years, especially in the second term of President Joko Widodo's administration, tends to be more accommodating to the President's wishes so that public debt increases and the credibility of fiscal policy decreases.
"But what must be avoided is the perception that Sri Mulyani Indrawati's replacement was due to the looting of her house because it was considered that the policy was not pro-people," he said in his statement, quoted on Tuesday, September 9.
According to him, if such a perception develops, it can trigger negative reactions from business actors, financial markets, and the wider community.
He emphasized that replacing Sri Mulyani is expected to continue to experience complicated and difficult fiscal problems.
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Fadhil considered that Purbaya Yudhi Sadive was a fairly good economist and understood economic problems. However, he underlined that Purbaya did not have direct experience in managing state fiscals as a whole.
"Regarding his successor, Purbaya Sadive, I think he is a good economist, understands the problem, but he does not have experience directly managing fiscal and economic as a whole. So it can be said that he is not the best choice. There are still better choices. For example, the deputy minister has success, the results have experience, understanding the ins and outs of the Ministry of Finance, so the policy can be more certain," he said.