This Is An Indication That Indonesia's Economy Is Starting To Recover According To Sri Mulyani

Illustration. (Photo: By courtesy)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the economic performance until March 2021 will continue the positive trend.

This assumption was driven by the increasing achievement of the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). In addition, in terms of international trade, both exports and imports showed optimal work with a record surplus, as well as an increase in the Consumer Confidence Index (IKK).

He said that public consumption is the largest contributor to the formation of gross domestic product (GDP). Then, the consumer confidence index was also seen to have increased quite significantly from 85.8 in February to 93.4 in March 2021.

"This means that Indonesian consumers have confidence as seen in several indicators that support public consumption activities", explained the Minister of Finance in a virtual press conference for our State Budget (APBN), Thursday, April 22.

The minister added, the Indonesian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) has continued to be in the expansionary zone in the last 5 months. In this March period, the PMI was recorded at 5.32. This figure is the highest PMI record since April 2011.

“In March, the leading indicators are showing improvement and you can see in this case everything is green. "Leading indicators are an early indicator of Indonesia's economic pace. If it is in the green zone, it means it represents positive activities", she said.

The development of leading indicators in March 2021 included the retail sales index, which increased to 182.3, car sales grew by 10 percent year-to-year, electricity consumption grew by 3.3 percent year-to-year (yoy), and Google mobility an increase of 5 percent compared to February.

Furthermore, investment is predicted to show improvement, with the cement consumption indicator growing positively by 11.4 percent yoy and the capital goods import indicator which also shows a positive trend.

In March 2021, export performance experienced a significant increase of 30.26 percent yoy, while import performance also had a positive trend with an increase of 26.40 percent yoy.

"This illustrates that our momentum to recover from last year's base effect shows a very convincing role", concluded the Minister of Finance.