A Number Of Countries Are Believed To Continue Fiscal Stimulus To Overcome The Pandemic

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that if the spread of COVID-19 was not fully controlled, it was predicted that a number of countries would resume expansionary fiscal policies to reduce the impact of the pandemic.

Especially with the emergence of the current delta variant which makes the transmission rate faster than before.

"Fiscal stimulus is believed to be used by many countries, especially a number of developed countries with the hope that recovery can be achieved," he said during a virtual press conference of the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK), Friday, August 6.

According to the Minister of Finance, fiscal instruments, in this case the APBN, are very important to hoist growth which has the potential to be further depressed by the impact of the pandemic. For this reason, government spending is expected to maintain the quality of the economy at a controlled level.

"The state budget has an important role in driving growth in line with the continuing process of national economic recovery," he said.

The Minister of Finance added that several countries in Asia and Europe were 'forced' to continue fiscal expansion due to the outbreak of a new variant of the corona virus.

"Amid the optimism for recovery, a number of countries are again facing the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant, including the UK, the Netherlands, Malaysia, China, and Thailand, and this inevitably has to be responded to through state spending," he said.

For information, the government has responded to the outbreak of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country since the beginning of last year through the provision of a National Economic Recovery (PEN) budget. It is noted that the realization of PEN in 2020 is around Rp. 575 trillion.

Meanwhile, in the 2021 APBN, the PEN budget, which was originally budgeted at Rp. 699 trillion, was later increased to Rp. 774.75 trillion, in line with the delta variant that spread last July, which included high daily cases.