Sri Mulyani: Government Encouraged The Housing Sector, But Many People Still Own Unworthy Houses

Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Instagram @smindrawati)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said the housing sector has a huge impact on the economy.

"Household expenditure from this sector will be able to increase GDP by 0.6 to 1.4 percent and can absorb 4.23 million people in the housing sector. This means that any financing made to the housing sector has a very large impact on the housing sector. economy, "Sri Mulyani said as quoted by Antara , Thursday, October 15.

According to the Minister of Finance, the housing sector is an important sector and contributes to Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and has a significant chain effect and absorption of labor.

Every input in the housing sector related to property has the potential to grow the economy in other sectors. Starting from trading, apart from cars and motorbikes, real estate services, trade in cars and motorbikes, and education, as well as in terms of the development of other services or services.

"In accordance with the target of the National Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMN), the contribution of the housing sector to our GDP will be increased from 2.9 percent to 4 percent," said Sri Mulyani.

This means that all ecosystems and stakeholders in the housing sector need to be able to move in increasing added value. On that occasion, Sri Mulyani also conveyed a number of problems in the housing sector in Indonesia.

"The government realizes that living in a healthy house is an important need and right for the community. Based on data from the Ministry of PUPR, the housing backlog has reached more than 7.6 million units in early 2020. Most of it is a need of Low-Income Communities (MBR). , "said Sri Mulyani.

This backlog is a necessity to fulfill the ideal calculation, that one house is occupied by one household or family. "Regarding this problem, we still see the need for new houses to increase by around 800 thousand units per year," said Sri Mulyani.

He also said that the problems in the housing sector and the housing sector in Indonesia are related to affordability, because the purchasing power of the people, especially those from the lower classes, is very unable to get a decent house.

Besides that, another obstacle is spatial planning, in which housing and settlements are getting further away from the city center. Without an adequate infrastructure network, people will certainly feel very burdened by the existence of housing locations that are very far from where they work.

In terms of urban planning, a widespread spatial plan in the form of an urban sprawl will inevitably create a very inefficient ecosystem condition, including increasing CO2 emissions.

Besides that, the problem in the housing construction sector is the problem of building reliability standards. This is not only closely related to the quality of the people living in houses with inadequate building reliability, but also from a safety perspective considering that Indonesia is a disaster-prone country.

"From the aspect of feasibility where 41.7 percent of people or households occupy dwellings that only have one aspect of feasibility and some of them even occupy slum settlements," said Sri Mulyani.