Airlangga Called Indonesia Included In The Top Five Countries Capable Of Handling COVID-19 And The Economy

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hatarto (Photo: Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPC-PEN) Airlangga Hartarto claims Indonesia is one of the five countries that has succeeded in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as dealing with the resulting economic impact.

According to him, this condition can be seen from the decline in the number of active COVID-19 cases to an increase in patient recovery rates and controlled economic contraction.

"The recovery rate as of 11 October yesterday was 76.48 percent. This is higher than the world's recovery of 75.0 percent. This is due to the decline in active cases in several provinces in three days so that the recovery rate has increased," said Airlangga in a press conference broadcast online at the BNPB YouTube account, Monday, October 12.

Meanwhile, based on the latest data, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Indonesia currently stands at 19.97 percent. This figure, he said, was much better than the previous figure of 22.1 percent.

Even so, he did not deny that the current fatality rate in Indonesia is still higher than the world average. However, according to him, this continues to improve because the eight provinces with the highest number of cases continue to experience a decline. Moreover, Airlangga claims, Indonesia's fatality rate of 3.55 is far below other countries such as South Korea, Lithuania and Taiwan.

In addition, the government is also currently focusing on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic on a micro level by focusing on handling 12 districts and cities that have the highest number of cases, such as West Jakarta, South Jakarta, Central Jakarta and East Jakarta. Furthermore, there are also Depok, Bekasi, Ambon and Pekanbaru.

Meanwhile, in the economic sector, said the Golkar Party Chairman, the government has done a number of things. One of them is by realizing assistance programs for the community and small and medium enterprises affected by the pandemic.

So with these conditions, Airlangga said, Indonesia had succeeded in handling COVID-19 both in terms of health and economy.

"Regarding the national economic recovery and COVID-19, we see that various countries have done it and Indonesia is one of the countries that deals with economic contraction that is relatively lower than other countries," said the Coordinating Minister for the Economy.

"So we are among the top five who can handle the COVID-19 balance and the softening of the economic contraction and the outlook is of course we hope that by the end of this year it will be minus one to plus 0.6," he added.

Furthermore, Airlangga said the government would continue to believe that the economy would be able to move better. Moreover, currently DKI Jakarta, which is the center of the economy, has strictly revoked the PSBB policy, such as the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with a transitional PSBB so that it is predicted to be able to re-correct the PMA which fell to 48 percent.

Not to mention, a number of additional funds in Himbara amounting to Rp.47.5 trillion, so that the total leverage could reach Rp150 trillion.

"This means that according to the President's direction, not only based on the APBN economy but also the real economy is encouraged," he concluded.