JAKARTA - State-Owned Enterprises Minister, Erick Thohir, said that amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, Indonesia's economy is still much better than the economies of The Group of Twenty (G20) countries.
According to Erick, this condition was caused by the decision of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). The president chose to implement Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB), rather than lockdown.
Indonesia's economy would fall far short when the lockdown became the government's alternative to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
"Imagine if we implemented lockdown. How devastated our economy will be. Now, we will see that we have a much better economy than the G-20 countries," he said during a virtual discussion, Friday, August 7.
However, Erick emphasized that even though Indonesia's economic contraction was much better than the G20 countries, the government didn't immediately make an overall economic recovery. This means that the economic recovery will be carried out gradually.
For example, in the tourism sector, the government focuses more on domestic tourists than foreign tourists. Although foreign tourists are able to provide foreign exchange for the country.
Erick explained that there was a reason for this decision. In the prevention of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government must hit the brakes and gas at the right time. Therefore, opening up tourism to foreign tourists will actually create a new cluster of the spread of this virus.
"Step 1, 2, 3, this is periodic. But there must be an overlapping journey in that step. We still encourage local tourism. Do we really want to open our tourism to foreign countries? We're not ready yet. Why? Because new clusters could grow," he said.
Based on tourism data, the largest contribution came from domestic tourists. The number reaches 90 percent.
Therefore, the 'gas' means opening up tourism. Meanwhile, the 'brake' means temporarily closing tourism for foreign tourists.
"We protect our citizens anyway. Alhamdulillah with the opening of Bali, Yogya, Bandung, I saw that the growth has started to return. Although it is not 100%, only 30-40%. But, alhamdulillah, compared to other countries," he said.
Previously, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) noted that the economic growth in the second quarter of 2020 contracted or minus 5.32% on an annual basis or year-on-year (YoY). This figure worsened from the first quarter of 2020 which reached 2.97% and the second quarter of 2019 which was 5.05%.
The head of BPS, Suhariyanto, said that the amount of Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), based on constant prices in the second quarter of 2020, is IDR 2,589.6 trillion.
"So compared to the second quarter of 2019, Indonesia's economy in the second quarter of 2020 YoY contracted 5.32%. If we compare it to the first quarter of 2020, quarter to quarter, Indonesia's economic growth contracted minus 4.19%," he said in a virtual press conference, Wednesday, August 5.
Meanwhile, cumulatively, in the first semester of 2020 against the same period last year, it is contracted by 1.26%.
Suhariyanto explained that the contraction of 5.32% was the lowest one since the first quarter of 1999. At that time, the Indonesian economy contracted by 6.13%.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
