President Jokowi: Indonesia's Economic Growth Is Only Losing To China, Other Countries Have The Same Fate As Us

President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo. (Photo: Doc. Setkab)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo said controlling the COVID-19 case was the key to moving the Indonesian economy.

"Economic growth is recording optimistic figures. Meanwhile, the trend of daily COVID-19 cases continues to decline", said President Joko Widodo as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, April 21.

President Joko Widodo explained that Indonesia's economic growth in 2020 will be minus 2.1 percent.

"We only lost to the plus PRC. The others, the US, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, are all minus a lot", said President Jokowi.

At present, the President added that the daily number of COVID-19 cases was in the range of 4,000 to 5,000, or much lower than in January-February which was still above 10,000.

"The application of restrictions on micro-scale community activities is still the key to controlling COVID-19", said the President.

Therefore, the President hopes that this condition can be maintained and improved so that economic growth can continue to move in a positive direction.

In this regard, in welcoming the momentum of Eid Al-Fitr 2021, the President asked the public to strictly comply with the prohibition on homecoming that has been set by the government.

According to the President, the ban on going home is considered important to prevent a spike in cases such as what happened in January - February 2021.

"Our economic growth is already good, don't bother with COVID-19 anymore", said the President.

Learning from previous experiences, continued the President, the increase in community mobility during holidays has led to an increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases.

The President noted, for example, during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday May 22-25 last year, the average positive cases increased by 68 to 93 percent. Then during the Islamic New Year holiday on August 20-23, 2020, the average positive cases increased by 58-119 percent.

Meanwhile, the holiday commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad SAW on October 28 - November 1, 2020, has also increased the figure by 37-95 percent. Because of this, President Joko Widodo has pushed for the ban on going home to the public many times.

"This (homecoming ban) is necessary because according to the survey we conducted, there are 11 percent of people who still wish to go home this year. If converted, the 11 percent survey figure equals 17 million people", said the President.

"If homecoming is not prohibited, our calculations will increase the number to 120 thousand to 140 thousand cases of COVID-19 per day. So we must continue to press it", President concluded.