Sri Mulyani: Pandemic Is Not Only A Health Problem, But Also Social, Economic, And The Contents Of People's Wallets

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

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati stated that the COVID-19 pandemic crisis is an opportunity to strengthen the country's foundations with various formulations of the right policy steps.

"Seeing a crisis as an opportunity to be able to formulate appropriate steps and then build a stronger foundation for the country," he said at the 74th RI Oeang Day Ceremony in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Saturday, October 31.

Sri Mulyani said that this pandemic was not only a health problem that had claimed lives but also had social, economic and financial implications for the entire community.

"Indonesia is struggling to get out of COVID-19 as faced by 200 other countries in the world. We will continue to focus all our energies and minds to overcome it and build Indonesia's foundation going forward," he said.

He said that currently the government is struggling to formulate policies from an economic perspective so that growth in the third and fourth quarters can be maintained because it has been very deeply depressed in the second quarter to reach 5.32 percent.

"We continue to fight for the recovery to take place, especially in the third quarter after facing difficult conditions in the second quarter with a contraction of 5.3 percent," he said.

Sri Mulyani continued that the government is also trying to formulate a policy in order to provide protection to affected communities so that they can survive amid the pandemic crisis.

"We must continue to implement policies to encourage the economy to move again with increasing consumption figures, so that producers can produce both for SMEs and large and medium enterprises," he explained.

Sri Mulyani also reminded officials at the Ministry of Finance to be able to take anticipatory and responsive policy steps in this very unusual situation.

He thanked his staff who had so far been active in shaping various policy formulations in order to respond to and deal with the impact of COVID-19 on state finances.

"Even though they have to work from home, this does not hinder the ability of the Ministry of Finance to continue to formulate steps to help society, restore the economy, and build the foundation of Indonesia," he said.