Sri Mulyani: The Focus Of The Government Is Maintaining A Balance Between Health And Economy

Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati. (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati emphasized that the government must maintain a balance between health and economy in the midst of a pandemic because both have implications for the welfare of the community.

"This is something we have to maintain a balance between health and maintaining the economy and restoring people's welfare," he said at a joint meeting with the Indonesian Parliament in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Monday, October 5.

Sri Mulyani stated that balancing the economic and health aspects is indeed a very difficult task but it can be achieved if all elements of the nation have a concern to work together.

"The COVID-19 problem is not a financial problem but a health problem. It is a problem related to caring for all of us," he said.

He said a balance had to be done because the government's efforts to restore the economy related to the welfare of the community would very much depend on handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sri Mulyani explained that there are several factors that affect economic recovery, such as the potential for a second wave, availability of vaccines, and vaccination activities so that handling in the health sector must also be the main thing.

Meanwhile, according to him, the economic sector had begun to see a reversal trend in the third quarter after there was deep pressure in the previous quarters.

He predicts that the third quarter will still be in the negative zone but it will be better than the growth in the second quarter which contracted by up to 5.32 percent.

"The growth in the first quarter was at 3 percent, the second quarter was minus 5.3 percent, and in the third quarter we predict that it might still be negative although it is much better than in the second quarter," he said.

Sri Mulyani explained that recovery in both the economic and health sectors requires a very large fiscal stimulus, causing this year's state budget deficit to be estimated at 6.34 percent.

This fiscal stimulus was also carried out by various countries including Britain, Spain, France and Germany, which reached 10 percent of GDP, causing economic contraction to reach double digits.

"In this context we would say that all over the world who went into a tremendous shock then they used fiscal as a countercyclical and that caused quite a big deficit," he said.